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THE ROMANCISTS 

JULES CLARETIE 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 





























ROMAN CONTEMPORAIN 


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JULES CLARETIE 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


TEN ETCHINGS 


PHILADELPHIA 

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HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

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TO ALPHONSE DAUDET 


My Dear Friend, 

Ideas sometimes float about in the air like the pollen 
of flowers. For years past I have been at work collect- 
ing notes for this book which I have decided to dedicate 
to you. 

In one of your charming prefaces, you told us lately 
that you only painted from nature. We are both of us, 
I imagine, in our day and generation, quite captivated 
and carried away by that modern society from which 
in your exquisite creations you have so well understood 
how to extract the essence. 

What is it that I have desired to do this time ? That 
which we have both been trying to do at one and the 
same time : to seize, in passing, these stirring times of 
ours, these modern manners, that society which perpetu- 
ates the antediluvian uproar, that feverish, bustling world 
always posing before the footlights, that market for the 
sale of appetites, that kirmess of pleasure that saddens 
us a little and amuses us a great deal, and allows us 
romance-writers, simple seekers after truth, to smile in 
our sleeves at the constant seekers after portfolios. 

This book is true, I have seen the events narrated in 

iii 


IV 


TO ALPHONSE DAUDET 


it pass before my own eyes, and I can say, as a spectator 
greatly interested in what I see, that I am delighted, my 
old fellow-traveller, to write your great and honored 
name on the first page of my book as a witness to the 
sincere affection and true comradeship of 

Your devoted, 

Jules Claretie. 


PREFACE 


There was once a Minister of State who presented to 
his native land the astonishing spectacle of a Cabinet 
Minister dying whilst in office. This action was so 
astounding to the nation at large that a statue has since 
been erected to his memory. 

I saw his funeral procession defile past me , I think 
I even made one of the Committee sent by the Society of 
Men of Letters to march in the funeral convoy. It was 
superb. This lawyer from the Provinces , good honest 
man , eloquent orator , honest politician that he was , 
who came to Paris but to die there , was buried with the 
greatest magnificence. 

De Musset had eight persons to follow him to the 
grave ; his Excellency had one hundred thousand. 

I returned home from this gorgeous funeral in a 
thoughtful mood, thinking how much emptiness there is 
in glory, and particularly in political glory. This man 
had been “ Mis Excellency the Minister ” and not only 
his own province, but the whole country had placed its 
hopes on him. But what had he done ? He had left 
his home to cast himself into the great whirlpool of the 

v 


VI 


PREFACE 


metropolis . It was the romance of a great provincial 
plunged in Paris into the reality of contemporary history, 
and become as ordinary as the coimnonplace ite?ns of the 
journals. “ What a subject for a study at once pro- 
foundly modern and perfectly lifelike !” The funeral 
convoy had hardly left the church of the Madeleine when 
my plot of this romance was thought out, and appeared 
clearly before me in this title, very brief and simple : 
His Excellency the Minister. 

I have not drawn any one in particular, I have 
thought of no individual person , I even forgot all about 
this departed Minister, whose face I hardly caught even 
a glimpse of, and of whose life I 7oas completely igno- 
rant ; I had only in my mind s eye a hero or rather a 
heroine: Politics with all its ■ discouragements , its vexa- 
tions, its treacheries, its deceptions, its visions as fair as 
the blue sky of summer , suddenly bursting like soap 
bubbles ; and to the woes of Politics, I naturally endeav- 
ored to add those of the pangs of love. 

And this is how my book came to see the light. I 
have been frequently asked from what living person I 
borrowed the character of Vaudrey, with its sufferings, 
its disappointments, its falterings. From whom ? An 
American translator, better informed, it appears, than my- 
self, has, I believe , brought out in New York a key to the 
characters presented in my book. I should have publicly 
protested against this Key which unlocks nothing , however, 
had it been published in Fi'ance. Reader, do not expect 
any masks to be raised here — there are no masks ; it is only 
a picture of living people, of passions of our time. No 
portraits, however, only types. That, at least, is what I 
have tried to do. And if I expected to fi7id indulgent 


PREFACE 


Vll 


critics , I have certainly succeeded and the two special 
characters which I sought to portray in my romance — 
in Parisian and political life — have been fortunate enough 
to win the approval of two critics whose testimony to the 
truth of my portraitures I have set down here. 

An author of rare merit and an authority on State- 
craft, Monsieur J. - J. Weiss , was kind enough one day 
to analyze and praise , apropos of the comedy founded 
upon my book , the romance which I am to-day repub- 
lishing. It has been extremely pleasant for me to put 
myself under the sponsorship of a man of letters willmg 
to vouch for the truth of my portrayals. I must beg par- 
don for repeating his commendations of my work , so 
grateful are they to me, coming from the pen of a critic 
so renowned, and which I take some pnde in reading 
again. 

“ I had already twice read Monsieur le Ministre,” wrote 
Monsieur J. - f. Weiss in the Journal des Debats the day 
following the production at the Gymnase, “ before having 
seen the drama founded on the book, and I do not regret 
having been obliged to read it for the third time. The 
romance is both well conceived and admirably executed. 
To have written it, a union of character and talent was 
necessary. A Republican tried and proved, permitting 
his ideal to be tarnished and sullied ; a patriot wronged 
by the vices of the times in which he lived ; an honest, 
clean-handed man ; the representative of a family of 
rigid morality ; the strict impartiality of the artist who 
cares for nothing but his ideas of art, and who protects 
those ideas from being injured or influenced by the pre- 
tensions of any group or coterie ; a close and long ac- 
quaintanceship with the ins and outs of Parisian life ; 


Vlll 


PREFACE 


an eye at once inquiring , calm and critical ', a cour- 
ageous indifference , hatred for the mighty ones of the hour , 
and a loftiness of soul which refuses to yield to the un- 
just demands of timid friendship : such are the qualities 
that make the value of this matchless book. Monsieur 
Claretie has been accused of having gathered together 
and exposed to the public gaze two or three more or less 
scandalous episodes of private life , and using them as the 
foundation of his romance. The fictitious name of Vau- 
drey has been held to cloak that of such and such a 
Minister of State. Those , however , who search for 
vulgar gossip in this book , or who. look for private 
scandal are far astray. They are quite mistaken as 
regards the tendency and moral of Monsieur Claretie' s 
book. The Vaudrey of the romance is no minister in 
particular , neither this statesman nor that. He is the 
Minister whom we have had before our eyes for the last 
quarter of a century. He is that one , at once potential 
and universal. In him are united and portrayed all the 
traits by which the species may be determined. He had 
been elected to office without knowing why, and to do 
him this justice , at least without any fault of his ; he 
was deposed from power without knowing the reason , and 
we have no hesitation in saying, without his having done 
anything either good or bad to deserve his fall. There 
he is minister, however; Minister of the Interior, and 
who knows ? in a fair way, perhaps, to be swept by some 
favorable wind to the post of President of the Council ; 
while not so very long ago to have been made sub-prefect 
of the first Hass, would have surpassed the wildest vis- 
ions of his youth. In Monsieur ' Clare tie y s romance it is 
the old Member of Parliament , Collard — of Nantes— 


PREFACE 


IX 


converted late in life to Republicanism , who chose the 
■provincial Vaudrey for his Minister of the Interior ; 
this may , with equal probability be Marshal MacMahon. 

“In Monsieur Claretie’s romance , Monsieur le Min- 
istre is of the Left Centre or the so-called Moderate 
Party , he is therefore on the side of Law and Order. He 
enters into the Cabinet with the determination to reform 
every abuse , to recast everything ; to seek for honest men, 
to make merit and not faction , the touchstone of advance- 
ment. In short, to apply in his political life the glorious 
principles which — and the noble maxims that — He is 
only, however, forty-eight hours in office when he becomes 
quite demoralized, paralyzed and stultified for the rest of his 
ministerial life. It is the phenomenon of crushing demoral- 
ization and of complete enervation of which the public, from 
the situation in which it is placed, sees only the results 
of which Monsieur Claretie, with a skilful hand describes 
for us the mechanism and the cause. This Minister of 
State, supposed to be omnipotent in office, has not even the 
power to choose an undersecretary of State for himself. 
The Minister who only the day before, from his seat upon 
one of the benches of the Opposition, sat with his head 
held aloft, his long body erect, with rigid dignity, as if 
made of triple brass, cannot now take the initiative in the 
appointment of a ‘'garde champetre/ His undersecre- 
taries of State, his gardes champetres, he himself, his whole 
environment, in fact, are only painted dummies and the meek 
puppets that a director of the staff, a chief of a division, ora 
chief of a bureau sets in motion, to the tune he grinds out 
of his hand-organ, or moves them about at his will like pawns 
upon a chess-board. The Minister will read with smiling 
confidence the reports by which his subordinates who are 


X 


PREFACE 


his masters , inform him — what no one until then had 
thought of- — that he has been called by the voice of the 
nation to his high office, and that he can in future count 
upon the entire and complete confidence of the country. To 
please these obliging persons , the hangers-on of governments 
that he has passed a quarter of his life in fighting against 
and whom he will call gravely , and upon certain occasions , 
very drolly , the hierarchy , he will betray without any 
scruples all those whose disinterested efforts and great 
sacrifices have brought about the triumph of the cause 
which he represents. 

“ Monsieur le Ministre is from the Provinces / You 
understand. Solemn and pedantic, if his youth has been 
passed upon the banks of the Isere, a puppy with his muz- 
zle held aloft and giddy , if Garonne has nourished him, 
broad faced and vulgarly pedantic if his cradle has been 
rocked in upper Limousin. But 'whether he co7nes from 
Correze, from Garonne or Isere, it is always as a Pro- 
vincial that he arrives in Paris, the air of which intoxicates 
him. He is in the same situation and carries with him 
the same sentiments as Monsieur fourdain when invited 
to visit the Countess Dorimene. For the first adventuress 
who comes along, a born princess who has strayed into a 
house of ill fame, or one who frequents such a house, who 
masquerades as a princess in her coquettish house in Rue 
Bremontier, he will forsake father, mother, children, state 
documents , cabinet, councils , Chamber of Deputies, every- 
thing in fact. He will break away from his young wife 
who has grown up under his eyes in the same town with 
him, among all the sweet domestic graces, moulded amid all 
the fresh and sapid delicacies of the provinces , but pshaw / 
too provincial for a noble of his importance, and he will go 


PREFACE 


xi 


in pursuit of some flower , no matter what, be it only redolent 
of Parisian patchouli. He will break the heart of the one , 
while for the other , he will bring before the councils of ad- 
ministration, suspected schemes, black?nailings, concessions, 
treachery and ruin. Monsieur Claretie had shown us the 
Vaudrey of his romance involved in all these degradations, 
although he has checked him as to some, and in his novel, 
at least, with due submission to the exalted truth of art, 
he has not shrunk froi?i punishing this false, great man 
a?id pretended t7'ibune of the people, by the very vices he 
espoused. 

“ I do not stop to inquire if even in the story, Monsieur 
Claretie’ s f Marianne Kayser ’ is frequently self -contra- 
dictory, and if in some features I clearly recognize his Guy 
de Lissac ; two characters that play an important part in 
the narrative ! But after all, what does it matter ? It 
suffices for me that his Excellency the Minister and all his 
Excellency’s entourage are fully grasped and clearly de- 
scribed. Granet, the low intriguer of the lobbies ; Molina , 
the stock-company cut-throat ajid Bourse ruffian ; Ramel, 
the melancholy and redoubtable publicist, who has made em- 
perors without himself desiring to become one, who will die in 
the neighborhood of Montmartre and the Batignolles, for- 
gotten but proud, poor, and unsullied by money, true to his 
ideals, among the ingrates enriched by his journal and who 
have reached the summit only by the influence of his authority 
with the public ; Denis Gamier, the Parisian workman 
who has had an experience of the hulks as the result of im- 
bibing too freely of sentimental prose a?id of lending too 
ready an ear to the golden speech of some tavern demagogue, 
who has now had enough of politics and who scarcely 
troubles to think what former retailer of treasonable lan- 


PREFACE 


xii 

guage, what Gracchus of the sidewalk may be minister , 
Vaudrey or Pichereau, or even Granet : all these types are 
separately analyzed and vigorously generalized. Monsieur 
Claretie designated no one in particular but we elbow the 
characters in his book every day of our lives. He has , 
moreover , written a book of a robust and healthy novelty. 
The picture of the greenroom of the Ballet with which 
the tale opens and whei'e we are introduced in the most 
natural way possible to nearly all the characters that play a 
part in the story of Vaudrey is masterly in execution and 
intention. It is Balzac , but Balzac toned down and more 
limpid 

I will stop here at the greenroom of the Ballet com- 
mended by Monsieur f. - f. Weiss, to give a slight sketch, 
clever as a drawing by Saint’ Aubin or a lithograph by 
Gavarni, which Monsieur Ludovic Halevy has contributed 
to a journal and in which he also praises the romance that 
the feuilletoniste of the Debats has criticized with an 
authority so discriminating and a benevolence so profound. 

It was very agreeable for me to observe that such a 
thorough Parisian as the shrewd and witty author of Les 
Petites Cardinal should find that the Opera — which certainly 
plays a role in our politics — had been sufficiently well por- 
trayed by the author of Monsieur le Ministre. And upon 
this, the first chapter of my book, Monsieur Ludovic Halevy 
adds, moreover, some special and piquant details which 
are well worth quoting : 

“ That which gave me very great pleasure in this tale of 
a man of politics is that politics really have little, very little 
place in the novel ; it is love that dominates it and in the 
most despotic and pleasant way possible . This great man 
of Grenoble who arrives at Paris in order to reform 


PREFACE 


xm 


everything, repair everything, elevate everything, falls at 
once wider the sway of a most charming Parisian adven- 
turess . See Sulpice Vaudrey the slave of Marianne. 
Marianne' 1 s gray eyes never leave him — But she in her 
turn meets her master — and Marianne 1 s master is Adolphe 
Gochard ' a horrid Parisian blackguard — who is so much 
her master that, after all, the real hero of the romance is 
Adolphe Gochard. Such is the secret philosophy of this 
brilliant and ingenious romance. 

“ I have, however, a little quarrel on my own account 
with Monsieur fules Claretie. Nothing can be more bril- 
liantly original than the introductory chapter of Monsieur 
le Ministre. Sulpice Vaudrey makes his first appearance 
behind the scenes of the Opera, and from the sides of the 
stage, in the stage boxes, opera-glasses are turned upon him, 
and he hears whispered : 

“ ‘ It is the new Minister of the Interior / 

“‘Nonsense ! Monsieur Vaudrey ?’ 

Yes, Monsieur Vaudrey — ■ 

“In short, the appearance of his Excellency creates a 
sensation , and it is against this statement that I protest. 
I go frequently to the Opera, very frequently. During the 
last ten years I have seen defile before me in the wings, 
at least fifty Ministers of State, all just freshly ground out. 
Curiosity had brought them there and the desire to see the 
dancers at close quarters, and also the vague hope that by 
exhibiting themselves there in all their glory, they would 
create a sensation in this little world. 

“ Well, this hope of theirs was never realized. Nobody 
took the trouble to look at them. A minister nowadays 
is nobody of importance. Formerly to rise to such a posi- 
tion, to take in hand the reins of one of the great depart- 


XIV 


PREFACE 


merits , it was necessary to have a certain exterior , a cer- 
tain prominence , something of a past — to be a Monsieur 
Thiers, Monsieur Guizot, Monsieur Mole, Monsieur de 
Remusat, Monsieur Villemain, Monsieur Duchatel \ Mon- 
sieur de Falloux or Monsieur de Broglie that is to say, 

an orator, an author, a historian, somebody in fact. But 
nowadays, all that is necessary to be a minister is the 
votes of certain little combinations of groups and subsidiary 
groups, who all expect a share of the spoils. Therefore we 
are ruled by certain personages illustrious perhaps at Gap 
or at Monielimar but who are quite unknown in the gen- 
ealogical records of the Boulevard Haussmann. Why 
should you imagine that public attention would be attracted 
by news like this : 

“ ‘ Look ! — There is Monsieur X, or Monsieur Y, or 
Monsieur Z.’ 

“ One person only during these last years ever succeeded 
in attracting the attention of the songstresses and ballet- 
girls of the Opera. And that was Gambetta. Ah! when 
he came to claim Monsieur Vaucorbeil’s hospitality, it was 
useless to crouch behind the cherry-colored silk curtains of 
the manager s box, many glances were directed toward 
him , and many prowling curiosities were awakened in the 
vicinity of the manager s box. Little lassies of ten or 
twelve came and seized your hand, saying: 

“ ‘ Please , monsieur, point out Monsieur Gambetta to 
me — he is here — I would so much like to see him.’ 

“And then Gambetta was pointed out to them during 
the entr’acte — after which, delighted, they went off caracol- 
ing and pirouetting behind the scenes : 

“ ‘ You did not see Monsieur Gambetta, but I saw 
him / ’ 


PREFACE 


xv 


“ This was popularity — and it must be confessed that 
only one man in France to-day receives such marks of it. 
This man is Gambeita. 

“ Meanwhile Claretie's minister continues his walk 
through the corridors of the Opei-a house. He reaches the 
greenroom of the ballet at last and exclaims : 

“ ‘ And that is all ! ’ 

“ ‘ Alas, yes, your Excellency , that is all ! — ' " 

And everything is only a “ that is all/’ in this world. 
If one should set himself carefully to weigh power or fame, 
power, that force of which Girardin said, however : “I 
would gwe fifty years of glory for one hour of power," 
— even if one tilted the scale, one would not find the weight 
very considerable. 

It would be necessary to have the resounding renown of 
a personality like that one, who if I am to believe Monsieur 
Halevy , alone enjoyed the privilege of revolutionizing the 
foyer of the ballet, in order to boast of having been some- 
one, or of having accomplished something. 

A rather witty skeptic once said to a friend of his who 
had just been appointed minister : 

“ My dear fellow, permit me as a practical man to ask 
you not to engage in too many affairs. Events in this 
world are accomplished without much meddling. If you 
attempt to do something to-day, everyone will ciy out : 
‘ What! he is going to demolish everything ! ’ If you do 
nothing, they will cry : ‘ What / he does not budge / If I 
were minister, which God forbid, I would say nothing — 
and let others act — I would do nothing — and let others 
talk.’ " 

Everybody , very fortunately — and all ministers do not 


XVI 


PREFACE 


reason like this jester . But the truth is that it is very 
difficult for an honest man in the midst of political en- 
tanglements as Vaudrey was , to realize his dream. When 
opportunities arise — those opportunities that march only 
at a snail ’s pace — one is not allowed to make use of 
them , they are snatched from one. They arrive , only to 
take wings again. And in those posts of daily combat ', 
one has not only against one the enemies who attack one 
openly , which would be but a slight matter , a touch with 
a goad or a prick of the spur, at most — but one has to 
contend with friends who compromise, and servants who 
serve one badly. 

Every man who occupies an office, whatever it may be, 
has for his adversaries those who covet it, those who re- 
gret it, those who have once filled it, and those who desire 
to fill it. What assaults too ! Against a successful rival, 
there is no infamy too base, no mine too deep, no villainy 
too cruel, no lie too poisoned to be made use of — and the 
minister, his Excellency , is like a hostage to Power. 

And yet one more point, it is not in his enemies or his 
calumniators that his danger lies. The real, absolute 
evil is in the system of routine and ill-will which attack 
the statesmen of probity. It will be seen from these pages 
that there is a warning bell destined, alas / to keep away 
from those in power, the messengers who would bring 
them the truth from outside, the unwelcome and much 
dreaded truth. 

The novel may sometimes be this stroke of the bell, — a 
stroke honest and useful, — a disinterested warner, and I 
have striven to make Monsieur le Ministre precisely that, 
in a small degree, for the political world. I have essayed 
to paint this hell paved with some of the good intentions. 


PREFACE 


XVII 


The success which greeted the appearance of this book , 
might justify me in believing that I have succeeded in my 
task. I trust that it will enjoy under its new form — so 
flattering to an author , that an editor-artist is pleased to 
give it, — the success achieved under its first form. 

Monsieur le Ministre is connected with more than o?ie 
recollection of my life. I was called upon one day to fol- 
low to his last resting-place — and it is on an occasion like 
this that one discovers more readily and perceives more 
clearly life’s ironies — one of those men “ who do nothing 
but create other men,” a journalist. It was bitterly cold 
and we stood before the open grave , just in front of a 
railway embankment , in an out of the way cemetery of 
Saint- Ouen, — the cemetery called Cayenne, because the 
dead are “deported” thither. We were but four faith- 
ful ones. Yes , four, but amongst these four must be in- 
cluded a young man , bare-headed and wearing the uni- 
form of an officer , who stood by the deceased man’ s son. 

Whilst one of us bade the last farewell to the departed 
on the brink of the grave , the scream of the railway engine 
cut short his words, and seemed to hiss for the last time 
the fate of the vanquished man lying there. As we were 
quitting the cemetery , a worthy man, a song-writer , ob- 
served to me : “ Well \ if all those whom Leon Plee had 
helped during his lifetime had remembered him when he 
was dead, this little Campo Santo of Saint- Ouen would 
not have been large enough to hold them all ! ” 

Doubtless. But they did not remember him. 

And from the contrast between the shabby obsequies 
of the old journalist and the solemn pomp of that of the 
funeral service of the four days’ minister came the idea 
of my book. It seemed to me that here was an appropri- 


xviii PREFACE 

ate idea and a useful reparation. Art has nothing to 
lose — rather the contrary , when it devotes itself to militant 
tasks. 

Ah ! I forgot — When one mentions to-day the name of 
this illustrious minister whose funeral convoy was in its 
day one of the great spectacles of Paris, and one of the 
great surprises to those who know how difficult it is for a 
minister to die in office — like the Spartan still grasping his 
shield — those best informed, shaking their heads solemnly 
will say ; 

“ Ricard ? — Oh ! he had great talent, Ricard — I saw 
lately a portrait of Paul de Musset by him — “It is 
superb / " 

They confowid him with the painter to whom no 
statue has been erected, btit whose works remain. 

Be, then , a Cabinet Minister ! 

JULES CLARE TIE. 


Vi r of ay, September i, 1886. 


HIS EXCELLENCY 
THE MINISTER 




\ 



PART FIRST 







♦ 
















HIS EXCELLENCY THE 
MINISTER 

PART FIRST 

I 


The third act of L’Africaine had just come to a close. 

The minister, on leaving the manager’s box, said smil- 
ingly, like a man glad to be rid of the cares of State : 
“ Let us go to the greenroom, Granet, shall we ? ” 

“Let us go to the greenroom, as your Excellency 
proposes ! ” 

They were obliged to cross the immense stage where 
the stage carpenters were busy with the stage accessories 
as sailors with the equipment of a vessel ; and men in 
evening dress with white ties, looked natty without their 
greatcoats, and with opera hats on their heads were 
going to and fro, picking their way amongst the ropes 
and other impedimenta which littered the stage, on 
their way to the greenroom of the ballet. 


5 


6 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


They had come here from all parts of the house, from 
the stalls and boxes ; most of them humming as they 
went, the air from N&usko’s ballad, walking lightly as 
habitues through the species of antechamber which sep- 
arates the body of the house from the stage. 

A servant wearing a white cravat, was seated at a 
table writing down upon a sheet of paper the names of 
those who came in. One side of this sheet bore a head- 
line reading : Messieurs , and the other Me dec in, in two 
columns. From time to time this man would get up 
from his chair to bow respectfully to some official per- 
sonage whom he recognized. 

“Have you seen Monsieur Vaudrey come in yet, 
Louis?” asked a still young man with a monocle in his 
eye, who seemed quite at home behind the scenes. 

“ His Excellency is in the manager’s box, monsieur ! ” 
answered the servant civilly. 

“ Thank you, Louis ! ” 

And as the visitor turned to go up the narrow stairway 
leading to the greenroom, the servant wrote down in 
the running-hand of a clerk, upon the printed sheet : 
Monsieur Guy de Lissac. 

Upon the stage, Vaudrey, the Minister whom Lissac 
had been inquiring for, stood arm in arm with his com- 
panion Granet, looking in astonishment at the vast 
machinery of the opera, operated by this army of work- 
men, whom he did not know. He was quite aston- 
ished at the sight, as he had never beheld its like. His 


PART FIRST 


7 

astonishment was so evident and artless that Granet, his 
friend and colleague in the Chamber of Deputies, could 
not help smiling at it from under his carefully waxed 
moustaches. 

“ I consider all this much more wonderful than the 
opera itself,” observed his Excellency. The floor and 
wings were like great yellow spots, and the whole im- 
mense stage resembled a great, sandy desert. Vaudrey 
raised his head to gaze at the symmetrical arrange- 
ment of the chandeliers, as bright as rows of gas-jets, 
amongst the hangings of the friezes. A huge canvas at 
the back represented a sunlit Indian landscape, and in 
the enormous space between the lowered curtain and 
the scenery, some black spots seemed as if dancing, 
strange silhouettes of the visitors in their dress clothes, 
standing out clearly against the yellow background like 
the shadows of Chinese figures. 

“It is very amusing; but let us see the greenroom,” 
said the minister. “You are familiar with the green- 
room, Granet?” 

“lama Parisian,” returned the deputy, without too 
great an emphasis ; but the ironical smile which accom- 
panied his words made Vaudrey understand that his col- 
league looked upon his Excellency as fresh from the 
province and still smacking of its manners. 

Sulpice hesitatingly crossed the stage in the midst of 
a hubbub like that of a man-of-war getting ready for 
action, caused by the methodical destruction and removal 


8 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


of the scenery comprising the huge ship used in L Afri- 
caine by a swarm of workmen in blue vests, yelling and 
shoving quickly before them, or carrying away sections of 
masts and parts of ladders, hurrying out of sight by way of 
trap-doors and man-holes, this carcass of a work of art ; 
this spectacle of a great swarm of human ants, running 
hither and thither, pulling and tugging at this immense 
piece of stage decoration, in the vast frame capable of 
holding at one and the same time, a cathedral and a 
factory, was rather awe-inspiring to the statesman, who 
stopped short to look at it, while the tails of his coat 
brushed against the fallen curtain. 

From both sides of the stage, from the stage-boxes, 
opera-glasses were turned upon him here and there and 
a murmur like a breeze came wafted towards him. 

“ It is the new Minister of the Interior ! ” 

“ Nonsense ! Monsieur Vaudrey? ” 

“ Monsieur Vaudrey.” 

Vaudrey proudly drew himself up under the battery of 
opera-glasses levelled at him, while Granet, smiling, said 
to the master of the chorus who, dressed in a black coat, 
stood near him : 

“ It can be easily seen that this is his first visit here ! ” 
Oh ! yes, truly, it was the first time that the new min- 
ister had set his foot in the wings of the Opera ! He 
relished it with all the curiosity of a youth and the gusto 
of a collegian. How fortunate that he had not brought 
Madame Vaudrey, who was slightly indisposed. This 


PART FIRST 


9 

rapid survey of a world unknown to him, had the flavor 
of an escapade. There was a little spice in this amus- 
ing adventure. 

Behind the canvas in the rear, some musicians, cos- 
tumed as Brahmins, with spectacles on their noses, the 
better to decipher their score, fingered their brass in- 
struments with a weary air, rocking them like infants in 
swaddling clothes. Actors in the garb of Indians with 
painted cheeks and legs encased in chocolate-colored 
bandages, were yawning, weary and flabby and stretch- 
ing themselves while awaiting the time for them to 
present themselves upon the stage. Others, dressed like 
soldiers, were sleeping on the wooden benches against 
the walls, their mouths open, their helmets drawn down 
over their noses like visors. Others, their pikes serving 
them for canes, had taken off their headgear and placed 
it at their feet, the better to rest their heads against the 
wall, where they leaned with their eyes shut. 

Little girls, all of them thin, and in short skirts, were 
already pirouetting, and humming airs. Older girls stood 
about with their legs crossed, or, half-stooping, displayed 
their bosoms while retying the laces of their pink shoes. 
Others, wearing a kind of Siamese headdress with orna- 
ments of gold, were laughing and clashing together their 
little silver cymbals. Awkward fellows with false beards, 
dressed like high priests in robes of yellow, striped with 
red, elbowed past and jostled against the girls quite un- 
ceremoniously. 


IO 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


An usher, dressed a la Frangaise, and wearing a chain 
around his neck, paced, grave and melancholy, amongst 
these shameless young girls. 

The greenroom at the end of the stage was entered 
through a large vestibule hung with curtains of grayish 
velvet shot with violet, and at the top of the steps 
where some men in dress-clothes were talking to 
ballet-girls, Vaudrey could see in the great salon be- 
yond, blazing with light, groups of half-nude women 
surrounded by men, resembling, in their black clothes, 
beetles crawling about roses, the whole company re- 
flected in a flood of light, in an immense mirror that 
covered one end of the room. Little by little, Vaudrey 
could make out above the paintings representing ancient 
dances, and the portraits by Camargo or Noverre, a con- 
fusion of gaudy skirts, pink legs, white shoulders, with the 
ubiquitous black coats sprinkled about here and there 
amongst these bright colors like large blots of ink upon 
ball-dresses. 

Sulpice had often heard the greenroom of the ballet 
spoken about, and he was at once completely disillu- 
sioned. The glaring, brutal light ruthlessly exposed the 
worn and faded hangings ; and the pretty girls in their full, 
short, gauzy petticoats, with their bare arms, smiling and 
twisting about, their satin-shod feet resting upon gray 
velvet footstools, seemed to him, as they occupied the 
slanting floor, to move in a cloud of dust, and to be robbed 
of all naturalness and freshness. 


PART FIRST 


“And is this all?” the minister exclaimed almost 
involuntarily. 

“What !” answered Granet, “you seem hard to 
please ! ” 

Amongst all these girls, there had been manifested an 
expression of mingled curiosity, coquetry and banter on 
Vaudrey’s appearance in their midst. His presence in 
the manager’s box had been noticed and his coming to 
the greenroom expected. Every one had hurried thither. 
Sulpice was pointed out. He was the cynosure of all 
eyes. On the divans beneath the mirror, some young, 
well-dressed, bald men, surrounded — perhaps by chance 
— by laughing ballet-girls, now half-concealed them- 
selves behind the voluminous skirts of the girls about 
them, and bent their heads, thus rendering their bald- 
ness more visible, just as a woman buries her nose in her 
bouquet to avoid recognizing an acquaintance. 

Vaudrey, observing this ruse, smiled a slight, sarcastic 
smile. He recognized behind the shielding petticoats, 
some of his prefects, those from the environs of Paris, 
come from Versailles and Chartres, or from some sub- 
prefectures, and gallantly administering the affairs of 
France from the heart of the greenroom. Amiable func- 
tionaries of the Ministry of Fine Arts also came here to 
study aestheticism between the acts. 

All members of the different regimes seemed to be 
fraternizing in ironical promiscuousness here, and Vau- 
drey in a whisper drew Granet’s attention to this. Old 


12 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


beaux of the time of the Empire, with dyed and waxed 
moustaches, with dyed or grizzled hair flattened on their 
temples, their flabby cheeks cut across by stiff collars as 
jelly is cut by a knife, were hobnobbing, fat and lean, 
with young fops of the Republic, who with their sharp 
eyes, wide-open nostrils, their cheeks covered with brown 
or flaxen down, their hair carefully brushed, or already 
bald, seemed quite surprised to find themselves in such 
a place, and chattered and cackled among themselves like 
beardless conscripts, perverted and immoral but with 
some scruples still remaining and less cunning than these 
well-dressed old roues standing firmly at their posts like 
veterans. 

“The licentiates and the pensioners,” whispered 
Vaudrey. 

“You have a quickness of sight quite Parisian, your 
Excellency,” returned Granet. 

“ There are Parisians in the Provinces, my dear 
Granet,” replied Sulpice with a heightened complexion, 
his blood flowing more rapidly than usual, due to emo- 
tions at once novel and gay. 

“ Ah ! your Excellency,” exclaimed a fat, animated 
man with hair and whiskers of quite snowy whiteness, 
and smiling as he spoke, “ what in the world brought 
you here ? ” 

He approached Vaudrey, bowing but not at all obse- 
quiously, with the air of good humor due to a combina- 
tion of wealth and embonpoint. Fat and rich, in perfect 


PART FIRST 


13 


health, and carrying his sixty years with the lightness of 
forty, Molina — Molina the “Tumbler” as he was nick- 
named — spent his afternoons on the Bourse and his 
evenings in the greenroom of the ballet. 

He had a small interest in the theatre, but a large one 
in the coryphees, in a paternal way, his white hair giving 
him the right to be respected and his crowns the right to 
respect nothing. Beginning life very low down, and now 
enjoying a lofty position, the fat Molina haunted the 
Bourse and the greenroom of the Op£ra. He glutted 
himself with all the earliest delicacies of the season, like 
a man who when young, has not always had enough to 
satisfy hunger. 

Pictures that were famous, women of fashion, statues 
of marble and fair flesh, he must have them all. He 
collected without any taste whatever, costly paintings, 
rare objects ; he bought without love, girls who were not 
wholly mercenary. At a pinch he found them, taking 
pleasure in parading in his coup£, around the lake or 
at the races, some recruit in vice, and in watching the 
crowd that at once eagerly surrounded her, simply be- 
cause she had been the mistress of the fat Molina. He 
had in his youth at Marseilles, in the Jewish quarter of 
the town, sold old clothes to the Piedmontese and sailors 
in port. Now it was his delight to behold the Parisians 
of the Boulevard or the clubs buy as sentimental rags, 
the cast-off' garments of his passion. 

“You in the greenroom of the ballet, your Excel- 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


lency?” continued the financier. “Ah ! upon my 
word, I shall tell Madame Vaudrey.” 

Sulpice smiled, the mere name of his wife sounded 
strange to his ears in a place like this. It seemed to 
him that in speaking of her, she was being dragged into 
a strange circle, and one which did not belong to her. 
He had felt the same only a few days before upon his 
entrance into the cabinet, on seeing a report of his mar- 
riage, his dwelling minutely described, and a pen portrait 
of that Adrienne, who was the passion of his life. 

“After all,” continued Molina, “Madame Vaudrey 
must get used to it. The Op£ra ! Why, it is a part of 
politics ! The key of many a situation is to be found 
in the greenroom ! ” 

The financier laughed merrily, a laugh that had the 
ring of the Turcarets’ jingling crowns. 

He went on to explain to his Excellency all the little 
mysteries of the greenroom, as a man quite at home in 
this little Parisian province, and lightly, by a word, a 
gesture even, he gave the minister a rapid biography of 
the young girls who were laughing, jesting, romping 
there before them; flitting hither and thither lightly 
across the boards, barely touching them with the tips of 
their pink satin-shod feet. 

Sulpice was surprised at everything he saw. He did 
not even take the pains to conceal his surprise. Evi- 
dently it was his first visit behind the scenes. 

“Ah! your Excellency,” said Molina, delighted with 


PART FIRST 


*5 

his role of cicerone, “it is necessary to be at home 
here ! You should come here often ! Nothing in the 
world can be more amusing. Here behind the scenes 
is a world by itself. One can see pretty little lasses 
springing up like asparagus. One sees running hither 
and thither a tall, thin child who nods to you saucily and 
crunches nuts like a squirrel. One takes a three months’ 
journey, and passes a season at Vichy or at Dieppe, and 
when one returns, presto ! see the transformation. The 
butterfly has burst forth from its cocoon. No longer 
a little girl, but a woman. Those saucy eyes of old now 
look at you with an expression which disturbs your heart. 
One might have offered, six months before, two sous’ 
worth of chestnuts to the child, now, however, nothing 
less than a coup£ will satisfy the woman. It used to 
jump on your knee at that time, now every one is 
throwing his arms around its pretty neck. Thus from 
generation to generation, one assists at the mobilization 
of a whole army of recruits, who first try their weapons 
here, pass from here into the regiment of veterans, build 
themselves a hospital in cut-stone out of their savings, 
and some of them mount very high through the tips of 
their toes if they are not suddenly attacked by the malady 
of the kneel * 

<< Malady of the knee ? ” inquired Vaudrey. 

“A phrase not to be found in the Dictionary of Polit- 
ical Economy by Maurice Block. It is a way of saying 
that ill-luck has overtaken one. A very interesting con- 


16 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

dition, this malady of the knee ! It often not only 
shortens the leg but the career ! ” 

“ Is this malady a frequent one at the Op£ra? ” 

“ Ah ! your Excellency, how can it be helped ? There 
are so many slips in this pirouetting business ! It is as 
risky as politics ! ” 

Fat Molina shouted with laughter at this clumsy jest, 
and placing a binocle upon his huge nose, which was 
cleft down the middle like that of a hunting-hound, he 
exclaimed suddenly, turning towards the door as he 
spoke : 

“ Eh ! Marie Launay ? What is she holding in her 
hand? ” 

Light, nimble and graceful in her costume of a 
Hindoo dancing girl, a young girl of sixteen or seven- 
teen summers, already betraying her womanhood in the 
ardent glances half-hidden in the depths of her large, 
deep-blue eyes, tripped into the greenroom, humming 
an air and holding in her hand a long sheet of paper. 

She shook, as if embarrassed by it, the broad necklace 
of large imitation pearls that danced on her fine neck and 
fell on her undeveloped bosom ; and looking in search 
of some one among the crowd of girls, cried out from a 
distance to a plump little brunette who was talking and 
laughing within a circle of dress-coats at the other end 
of the room : 

“ Eh ! Anna, you have not subscribed yet ! ” 

The brunette, freeing herself unceremoniously enough 
















I 


# 


» I 


V 


































» I 


4 



PART FIRST 


I 7 

from her living madrigals, came running lightly up to 
Marie Launay, who held out towards her an aluminum 
pencil-case and the sheet of paper. 

‘‘What the devil is that?” asked Molina. 

“ Let us go and see,” said Granet. 

“ Would it not be an indiscretion on our part? ” asked 
Vaudrey, half seriously. 

The financier, however, was by this time at the side of 
the two pretty girls, and asked the blonde what the paper 
contained, the names on which her companion was spell- 
ing out. 

Marie Launay, a lovely girl with little ringlets of fair 
hair curling low down upon her forehead, smiled like a 
pretty, innocent and still timid child, under the luring 
glances of the fat man, and glancing with an expression 
of virgin innocence at Sulpice and Granet, who were 
standing beside him, replied : 

“ That — Oh ! that is the subscription we are getting 
up for Mademoiselle Legrand.” 

“ Oh ! that is so,” said Molina. “ You mean to make 
her a present of a statuette ? ” 

“ On her taking her leave of us. Yes, every one has 
subscribed to it — even the boxholders. Do you see ?” 

Marie Launay quickly snatched the paper from her 
friend ; on it were several names, some written in ink, 
others in pencil, the whole presenting the peculiar ap- 
pearance of schoolboys’ pot-hooks or the graceful lines 

traced by crawling flies, while the fantastic spelling 
2 


18 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

offered a strange medley. Molina burst out laughing, 
his ever-present laugh that sounded like the shaking of a 
money-bag, — when he ran his eye over the list and found 
accompanying the names of ballet-dancers and members 
of the chorus, the distinguished particles of some habi- 
tues. 

“ Look ! your Excellency — It is stupendous ! Here : 
Amelie Dunois , 2 francs. Jeanne Garnot \ 5 francs. 
Bel- Enfant — Charles — , 1 fr., 50 centimes. Warmer I., 
2 francs. Warmer //., 2 francs. Gigonnet, 4 francs. 
Baron Humann y 100 francs. The baron ! — the former 
prefect ! Humann writing his name down here with 
Bel- Enfant Gigonnet. Humann inscribing above his 
signature — Ivill supscribe von hundertfranc ! If one were 
to see it in a newspaper, one would not believe it ! If 
only a reporter were here now ! For a choice Paris 
echo what a rare one it would be ! ” 

Granet examined little Marie Launay with sly glances, 
toying with his black moustache the while, and the 
other young girl Anna, very much confused at the coarse 
laughter of Molina the “Tumbler,” kept turning around 
in her slender fingers the aluminum pencil-case and 
looking at Marie as much as to say : 

“ You know I can never muster up courage to write 
down my name before all these people ! ” 

“Lend me your pencil, my child,” Molina said to 
her. 

She held it out towards him timidly. 


PART FIRST 


l 9 

“Where the baron has led the way, Molina the 
Tumbler may certainly follow ! ” said the financier. 

He turned the screw of the pencil-case to extend the 
lead, and placing one of his huge feet upon a divan to 
steady himself, wrote rapidly with the paper on his knee, 
as a man used to scribbling notes at the Bourse : 

“ Solomon Molina, 500 francs.” 

“Ah ! monsieur,” exclaimed Marie Launay upon read- 
ing it, “that is handsome, that is ! It is kind, very 
kind ! If everybody were as generous as you, we could 
give a statue of Terpsichore in gold to Mademoiselle Le- 
grand.” 

“ If you should ever want one of Carpeaux’s groups for 
yourself, my child,” said Molina, “ you may go to the 
studio in a cab to look at it, and fetch it away with you 
in — your own coup£.” 

The girl grew as red as a cherry under her pow- 
der, even her graceful, childish shoulders turned pink, 
enhancing her blonde and childlike beauty. 

Vaudrey was conscious of a strange and subtle charm 
In this intoxicating circle, — a charm full of temptations 
which made him secretly uneasy. There passed before 
his eyes visions of other days, he beheld the phantoms 
of gay dresses, the apparitions of spring landscapes, he 
felt the breezes of youth, laden with the scents of the 
upspringing grass, the lilacs at Meudon, the violets of 
Ville-d’Avray, the souvenirs of the escapades of his stu- 
dent days. Their short, full skirts reminded him of white 


20 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


frocks that whisked gayly around the hazel-trees long 
ago, those ballet-girls bore a striking resemblance to the 
pink and white grisettes that he had flirted with when he 
was twenty. 

He extended his hand in turn towards the sheet of 
paper to which Molina had just signed his name, saying 
to Marie Launay as he did so : 

“ Let me have it, if you please, mademoiselle.’ * 

Granet began to laugh. 

“ Ah! ah ! ” he cried, “you are really going to write 
down under Monsieur Gigonnet’s signature the name of 
the Minister of the Interior?” 

“ Oh ! bless me ! ” said Vaudrey, laughing, “ That is 
true ! You will believe it or not as you please, but I 
quite forgot that I was a minister.” 

“ It was the same with me when I was decorated,” said 
Molina. “ I would not receive my great-coat from box- 
openers because I saw the morsel of red ribbon hanging 
on it, and I was sure the garment was not mine. But 
one grows used to it after a while ! Now,” and his 
laugh with the hundred-sou piece ring grew louder than 
ever, “ I am really quite surprised not to find the rosette 
of red ribbon sticking to my flannel waistcoats.” 

Vaudrey left Marie Launay, greatly to her surprise, 
and listened to Molina’s chronicles of the ballet. 

“ Ah ! if his Excellency had but the time he would 
have seen the funniest things. For instance there was 
amongst the dancers a marble cutter, who during the day 


PART FIRST 


21 


sold and cut his gravestones and came here at night to 
grin and caper in the ballet. He was on the scent of 
every funeral from the Op£ra ; he would get orders for 
tombstones between two dances at the rehearsals. One 
day Molina had been present at one of these. It seems 
incredible, but there was a bank clerk in a gray coat, a 
three-cornered hat upon his head and a brass buckler on 
his arm, who sacrificed to Venus in the interval between 
his two occupations, dancing with the coryphees; a 
dancer by night and a receiver of money by day. A girl 
was rehearsing beside him, in black bands and skirt. 
Then Molina, astonished, inquired who she might be. 
He was told that it was a girl in mourning, whose mother 
had just died. The Op£ra is a fine stage upon which to 
behold the ironies and contrasts of life. 

The financier might have related to Sulpice Vaudrey 
a description of a journey to Timbuctoo and have found 
him less amused and less interested than now. It was a 
world new and strange to him, attractive, and as exciting 
as acid to this man, still young, whose success had been 
achieved by unstinted labors, and who knew Paris only 
by what he had learned of it years ago, when a law stu- 
dent : the pit of the Comedie Frangaise, the Luxembourg 
galleries and those of the Louvre, the Public Libraries, 
the Hall of Archives, the balls in the Latin Quarter, the 
holidays and the foyer of the Op£ra once or twice on the 
occasion of a masked ball. And, besides that? — Noth- 
ing. That was all. 


22 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


The great man from Grenoble arrived in Paris with his 
appetite whetted for the life of the city, and now he was 
here, suddenly plunged into the greenroom of the ballet, 
and all eyes were turned towards him, almost frightened 
as he was, on catching a glimpse of his own image re- 
flected in the huge mirror glittering under the numerous 
lights, in the heart of this strange salon and surrounded 
by half-clad dancing girls. Then, too, everybody was 
looking at him, quizzing him, shrinking from him through 
timidity or running after him through interest. The 
new Minister of State ! The chief of all the personnel 
of prefects, under-prefects, and secretaries-general repre- 
sented there, lolling on these velvet divans in this vulgar 
greenroom. 

All the glances, all the whisperings of the women, 
the frowns of his enemies, the cringing attitudes of 
dandified hangers-on, were making Vaudrey feel very 
uncomfortable, when to his great relief he suddenly 
observed coming towards him, peering hither and thither 
through his monocle, evidently in search of some one, 
Guy de Lissac, who immediately on catching sight 
of Vaudrey came towards him, greeting him with 
evident cordiality, tinged, however, with a proper re- 
serve. 

Sulpice was not long in breaking through this reserve. 
He hurried up to Guy, and seizing him by the hand, 
cried gayly : 

“ Do you know that I have been expecting this visit ! 


PART FIRST 


23 


You are the only one of my friends who has not yet con- 
gratulated me!” 

“ You know, my dear Minister,” returned Guy in the 
same tone, “ that it is really not such a great piece of 
luck to be made Minister that every one of your friends 
should be expected to fall upon your neck, crying bravo ! 
You have mounted up to the capitol, but after all, the 
capitol is not such a very cheerful place, that I should 
illuminate a giorno. I am happy, however, if you are. 
I congratulate you, if you wash your hands of it, and 
that is all.” 

“ You and my old friend Ramel,” answered Sulpice, 
“are the two most original men that I know.” 

“ With this difference however, Ramel is a Puritan, an 
ancient, a man of marble, and I am a boulevardier and a 
skeptic. He is a man of bronze — your Ramel ! And 
your friend Lissac of simili-bronze ! The proof of it is 
that I have been seeking you for half the evening to ask 
you to do me a favor.” 

“ What favor, my dear fellow? ” cried Vaudrey, his face 
lighting up with joy. “ Anything in the world to please 
you.” 

“ I was in Madame Marsy’s box, — you do not know 
Madame Marsy ? She is a great admirer of yours and 
makes a point to applaud you in the Chamber. She 
has prayed for your advent. She saw you in the man- 
ager’s box a while ago, and she has asked me to 
present you to her, or rather, to present her to you, 


24 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


for I presume for your Excellency the ceremony is 
modified.” 

“ Madame Marsy ! ” said Vaudrey. “ Is she not an 
artist’s widow ? Her salon is a political centre, is it 
not?” 

“Exactly. A recent salon opened in opposition to 
that of Madame Evan. An Athenian Republic ! You 
do not object to that? ” 

“ On the contrary ! A republic cannot be founded 
without the aid of women.” 

“ Ah ! ” cried Lissac, laughing. “ Politics and honors 
have not changed you, I see.” 

“Changed me? With the exception that I have 
twenty years over my head, and alas ! not so much hair 
as I had then upon it, I am the. same as I was in i860.” 

“ Hdtel Racine! Rue Racine /” said Lissac. “In 
those days, I dreamed of being Musset, I a gourmand, 
and what have I become ? A spectator, a trifler, a Pa- 
risian, a rolling stone. — Nothing. And you who dreamed 
of being a second Barnave, Vergniaud or Barbaroux, 
your dream is realized.” 

“ Realized ! ” said Vaudrey. 

* He made an effort to shake his head deprecatingly 
as if his vanity were not flattered by those honeyed words 
of his friend; but his glance displayed such sincere 
delight and so strong a desire to be effusive and in evi- 
dence, that he could not repress a smile upon hearing 
from the companion of his youth, such a confirmation of 


PART FIRST 


2 5 

his triumph. They are our most severe critics, these 
friends of our youth, they who have listened to the stam- 
mering of our hopes and dreams of the future. And 
when at length we have conquered the future, these are 
often the very ones to rob us of it ! Lissac, however, 
was not one of these envious ones. 

“ Let us go to Madame Marsy’s box, my dear Guy,” 
said Sulpice. “ The more so because if she at all re- 
sembles her portrait at the last Salon, she must be lovely 
indeed.” 

He left the greenroom, leaning on the arm of Lissac, 
after throwing a glance backward, however, at the girls 
whirling about there, and where in the presence of their 
stiff, ancient superiors, the young sub-prefects still hid their 
faces behind their opera hats. Granet with Molina went 
to take leave of Vaudrey, leaving little Marie Launay 
smiling artlessly because the financier, the Tumbler, had 
said to her, in drawing down her eyelids with his coarse 
finger : “ Will you close your periwinkles — you kid ? ” 

“ Your Excellency,” the banker had said, cajoling his 
Excellency with his meaning glance, “ I am always at 
your orders you know.” 

“ To-morrow, at the Prisons’ Commission, Monsieur 
le Ministre,” said Granet. And amid salutations on 
every side Vaudrey withdrew, smiling and good-humored 
as usual. 

In order to reach the box, Vaudrey had to cross the 
stage. The new scene was set. Buddhist temples with 


26 His EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

their grotesque shapes and huge statues stood out against 
a background of vivid blue sky, and on the canvas be- 
yond, great pink flowers glowed amid refreshing verdure. 
Over all fell a soft fairy-like light from an electric lamp, 
casting on the floor a fantastic gleam, soft and clear as 
the rays of the moon. Sulpice smiled as he passed be- 
neath this flood of light and saw his shadow projected 
before him as upon the glassy waters of a lake. It 
seemed to him that this sudden illumination, a sort of 
fantastic apotheosis as it were, was like the fairy-like 
aureole that attended his progress. 

At the very moment of leaving the greenroom, Sulpice 
had jostled accidentally against a man of very grave 
aspect wearing a black coat closely buttoned. He was 
almost bald save for some long, thin, gray locks that hung 
about his huge ears, his cheeks had a hectic color and 
his skull was yellow. He entered this salon in a hesi- 
tating, inquisitive way, with wide-open eyes and a gour- 
mand’s movement of the nostrils, and gazed about the 
room, warm with lights and heavy with perfume. 

Sulpice glanced at him carelessly and recognized him 
as the man whom he himself had superseded on Place 
Beauvau — a Puritan, a Huguenot, a widower, the father 
of five or six daughters, and as solemn and proper in his 
ordinary demeanor as a Sunday-school tract. Sulpice 
could not refrain from crying out merrily : “ Bless me ! 
Monsieur Pichereau ! ” 

The other shook his butter-colored skull as if he had 


PART FIRST 


27 

suddenly received a stinging blow on it with a switch, 
and his red face became crimson-hued at the sight of 
Sulpice, his successor in office, standing before him, 
politely holding out to him his two gloved hands. 

Guy de Lissac was no longer laughing. 

Their two Excellencies found themselves face to face 
at the foot of the greenroom staircase, in the midst of a 
crowd of brahmins, dancers, negresses, and female super- 
numeraries ; two Excellencies meeting there ; one smil- 
ing, the other grimacing beneath the glance of this curious, 
shrewd little world. 

“Ah! I have caught you, my dear colleague,” cried 
Sulpice, very much amused at Pichereau’s embarrassed 
air, his coat buttoned close like a Quaker’s and his little 
eyes blinking behind his spectacles, and looking as sheep- 
ish as a sacristan caught napping. 

“ Me ? ” stammered Pichereau. “ Me ? But my dear 
Minister, it’s you — yes, you whom I came expressly to 
seek ! ” 

“ Here ? ” said Vaudrey. 

“ Yes, here ! ” 

“ Really?” 

“ I had something to say to you — I — yes, I 
wanted ” 

The unlucky Pichereau mechanically pulled and 
jerked at his waistcoat, then assuming a dignified, grave 
air, he whistled and hesitated, and finally stammered : 

“ I wished to speak with you — yes — to consult with 


28 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


you upon a matter of grave importance — concerning 
Protestant communities.” 

Sulpice could not restrain his laughter. 

Pichereau, with his look of a Calvinistic preacher, was 
throwing from behind his spectacles glowing looks in 
the direction where Marie Launay stood listening to and 
laughing at the badinage of Molina. Some newspaper 
reporters, scenting a handy paragraph, came sauntering 
up to overhear some fragment of the conversation be- 
tween the minister of yesterday and him of to-day. 

Guy de Lissac stood carelessly by, secretly very 
much amused at Pichereau, who did not move, but rub- 
bing his hands nervously together was trying to appear 
at ease, yet by his sour smile at his successor allowing 
it to be plainly seen how gladly he would have strangled 
Vaudrey. 

“My dear colleague,” said Sulpice, gayly, “we will 
talk elsewhere about your communities. This is hardly 
the place. Non est his locus ! Good-bye ! ” 

“ Good-bye, your Excellency,” replied Pichereau with 
forced politeness. 

Vaudrey drew Lissac away, saying with a suppressed 
laugh : 

“ Oh ! oh ! the Quaker ! He has laid down his port- 
folio, but he has kept the key to the greenroom, it 
seems.” 

“ It would appear,” replied Guy, « that the door lead- 
ins into the greenroom may open to scenes of consola- 


PART FIRST 


2 9 

tion for fallen greatness. The blue eyes of Marie 
Launay always serve as a sparadrap to a fallen minis- 
ter ! ” 

“Was the fat Molina right? To lose the votes of the 
majority is perhaps the malady of the knee of minis- 
ters,” said Vaudrey merrily. 

He laughed again, very much amused at the irritable, 
peevish yet cringing attitude of Pichereau, the Genevan 
doctrinaire, who sought consolation in the greenroom of 
the ballet, whilst his five or six daughters sat at home, 
probably reading some chaste English romance, or prac- 
tising sacred music within the range of the green spec- 
tacles of their governess. 

" But ! ” said he gayly, “ to fall from power is nothing, 
provided one falls into the arms of ballet-girls.” 


ii 

Madame Marsy was awaiting Guy de Lissac’s return 
from the greenroom. From the moment she caught 
sight of Vaudrey standing within the range of her opera- 
glasses, she was seized with the eager desire to make 
him an habitu£ of her salon, the new salon that had just 
been launched. Madame Marsy was bitten by that ta- 
rantula whose bite makes modern society move as if 
afflicted with Saint Vitus’s dance. A widow, rich and 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


30 

still young, very much admired, she had set herself to 
play the role of a leader in society to pass away the time. 
She was one of those women forever passing before the 
reporters’ note-book, as others pass in front of a photo- 
graphic apparatus. Of her inner life, however, very little 
was known to the public. But the exact shade of her 
hair, the color of her eyes, the cut of her gowns, the 
address of her tradesmen, the menu of her dinners, the 
programme of her concerts, the names of her guests, the 
visitors to her salon, the address of her mansion, were all 
familiar to every one, and Madame Marsy was daily re- 
ported by the chroniclers to the letter, painted, dressed 
and undressed. 

There was some romantic gossip whispered about her. 
It was said that she had formerly led Philippe Marsy, the 
artist, a hard life. This artist was the painter of Charity , 
the picture so much admired at the Luxembourg, where 
it hangs between a Nymph by Henner and a Portrait of 
a Lady by Carolus Duran. She was pretty, free, and suf- 
ficiently rich since the sale of the contents of Philippe 
Marsy’ s studio. His slightest sketches had fetched enor- 
mous sums under Monsieur Pillet’s hammer at the Hotel 
Drouot, and Sabine after an appropriate interval of mourn- 
ing, opened her salon. 

Solitary, though surrounded by friends, she created 
no jealousy among her admirers, whose homage she re- 
ceived with perfect equanimity, as if become weary and 
desirous of a court but not of a favorite. She had a son at 


PART FIRST 


31 

college who was growing up ; he, however, was rarely to 
be met with in his mother’s little hotel in the Boulevard 
Malesherbes. This pale, slender youth in his student’s 
uniform would sometimes steal furtively up the staircase 
to pay his mother a visit as a stranger might have done, 
never staying long, however, but hurrying off again to 
rejoin an old woman who waited at the corner of the 
street and who would take him by the arm and walk 
away with him — Madame Marsy, his grandmother. 

It was the grandmother who was bringing up the boy. 
She and a kind-hearted fellow, Francois Charriere, a 
sculptor, who as he said himself, was nothing of a genius, 
but who, however, designed models and advantageously 
sold them to the manufacturers of lamps in the Rue 
Saint-Louis au Marais. It was Charriere who, in fulfil- 
ment of a vow made to his friend Marsy, acted as 
guardian to the boy. 

Nobody in Paris now remembered anything about 
Philippe Marsy. In the course of time, all the little 
rumors are hushed in the roar and rattle of Parisian life. 
Only some semi-flattering rumors were connected with 
Sabine’s name, together with some mysterious reminis- 
cences. Moreover, she had the special attraction of a 
hostess who imparts to her salon the peculiar charm and 
flavor of unceremonious hospitality. One was only 
obliged to wear a white cravat about his throat, he did 
not have to starch his wits. 

Only very recently had Sabine Marsy’s salon acquired 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


32 

the reputation of being an easy-going one, where one was 
sure of a welcome, a sort of rendezvous where every one 
could be found as in the corridor of a theatre on the 
night of a first appearance, or on the sidewalk of a 
boulevard ; a salon well-filled, that could rank with the 
semi-official and very distinguished one presided over 
by Madame Evan, and those others quieter, more sober 
— if a little Calvinistic — of the select Alsatian colony. 

Sabine Marsy must have had a great deal of tact, force 
of character and perseverance in carrying out her plans, 
to have reached this point, more difficult to her, more- 
over, than it would have been to any other, as she had no 
political backing whatever. Her connection with society 
was entirely through the world of artists. Many of these, 
however, had brought to her salon some of the Athe- 
nians of the political world, connoisseurs, good conver- 
sationalists, handsome men, who freely declared with 
Vaudrey, that a republic could not exist without the 
assistance of women, that to women Orleanism was due, 
and those charming fellows had made Madame Marsy’ s 
hospitable salon the fashion. 

Besides it is easy enough in Paris to have a salon if 
one knows how to give dinners. Some squares of Bristol 
board engraved by Stern and posted to good addresses, 
will attract with an almost disconcerting facility, a crowd 
of visitors who will swarm around a festive board like 
bees around a honeycomb. 

Paris is a town of guests. 


PART FIRST 


33 


Then too, Madame Marsy was herself so captivating. 
She was always on the watch for some new celebrity, 
as a game-keeper watches for a hare that he means to 
shoot presently. One of her daily tasks was to read the 
Journal Officiel in order to discover in the orator of to- 
day the Minister of State of to-morrow. She was always 
well informed beforehand which artist or sculptor would 
be likely to win the medal of honor at the Salon, and was 
the first to invite such a one and to let him know that it 
was she who had discovered him. In literature, she en- 
couraged the new school, liking it for the attention it 
attracted. It was also her aim to give to her salon a 
literary as well as a political color. Artists and statesmen 
elbowed one another there. 

For some days now, she had thought of giving a recep- 
tion which was to be a surprise to her friends. She had 
heard of Japanese exhibitions being given at other houses. 
She herself was determined to give a soiree exotique. It 
happened just then that a friend of Guy de Lissac, Mon- 
sieur Jos£ de Rosas, a great lounger, had returned from 
a journey around the world. What a piece of good for- 
tune ! She too had known De Rosas formerly, and if she 
could only get him to consent, she could announce a 
most attractive soiree : the travels of such a man as 
Monsieur de Rosas : a rare treat ! 

“The Comtesse d’Horville gives literary matinees,” 
said Sabine, quite on fire with the idea ; “ Madame 
Evan has poems and tragedies read at her receptions, 
3 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


34 

I shall have lecturers and savants, since that is fashion- 
able.” 

And what a woman wishes, a grandee of Spain willed, 
it appeared. Monsieur de Rosas decided, egged on a 
little by Guy de Lissac, to come and relate to Ma- 
dame Marsy’s friends his adventures in strange lands. 
The invitations to the soiree were already out. 

Madame Marsy had also obtained a promise from three 
Ministers of State that they would be present. She had 
spread the news far and wide. A little more and she 
would have had their names printed on the programmes 
for the evening. She had had a success quite unlooked 
for — a promise from Monsieur Pichereau to be present — 
from Pichereau, that starched Puritan, and all the news- 
papers had announced his intention. When suddenly — 
stupidly — a cabinet crisis had arisen at the most unex- 
pected moment, a useless crisis. Granet had interpel- 
lated Pichereau with a view to succeed him, and Pichereau 
fell without Granet succeeding him. A Ministry had been 
hastily formed, with Collard at its head, and Sulpice 
Vaudrey as Minister of the Interior in place of Pichereau ! 
And all those Ministers of State who had promised to be 
present to hear Monsieur de Rosas at Madame Marsy’s, 
fell from power with Pichereau. 

“ Such a Cabinet ! ” Sabine had exclaimed in a rage. 
“ A Cabinet of pasteboard capuchins.” 

“ A Ministry of pasteboard, certainly,” Guy had 
answered. 


PART FIRST 


35 

Madame Marsy was quite beside herself. Granet 
indeed ! Why could he not have waited a day or two 
longer before upsetting the whole administration. It 
would have been quite as easy to have overthrown Piche- 
reau a day after her soiree as a few days before. Was 
Granet then, in a great hurry to be made minister ? Oh ! 
her opinion of him had always been a correct one ! An 
ambitious schemer. He had triumphed, or at least he 
had expected to triumph. And the consequence was 
that Sabine found herself without a Minister to introduce 
to her guests. It was as if Granet had purposely designed 
this. 

No, she did not know a single member of the new 
Cabinet. She had spoken once to the President of the 
council, Collard, a former advocate of Nantes, at a re- 
ception at the Elys£e. Collard had even, in passing 
by her, torn off a morsel of the lace of her flounce. 
How charmingly, too, he had excused himself ! But this 
acquaintanceship with him would hardly justify her in 
asking him brusquely to honor her with his presence at 
this soiree upon which her social success depended. 

Her intimate friend, pretty Madame Gerson, who 
assisted her in doing the honors of her salon until the 
time when she herself would have a rival salon and 
take Sabine’s guests away from her, sought in vain to 
comfort her by assuring her that Pichereau would be 
sure to come. He had promised to do so. He was a 
sincere man, and his word could be relied on. He 


36 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

would, moreover, bring his former colleagues from the De- 
partments of Public Instruction, and Post andTelegraph. 
He had promised. Oh ! yes, Pichereau 1 Pichereau, 
however, mattered very little to Sabine now ! ^^-min- 

isters, indeed ! she could always have enough of them. 
It was not that kind that she wanted. She did not care 
about her salon being called the Invalides as that of a 
rival was called the Salon des Refuses. No, certainly 
not, that was something she would never consent to. 

Granet’s impatience had upset all her plans. 

So Madame Marsy, side by side in her box with 
Madame Gerson, whose dark, brilliant beauty set off her 
own fair beauty, had listened with a bored and sulky 
manner to the first act of L Africaine y while Monsieur 
Gerson conversed timidly, half under his breath, with 
Guy de Lissac, who made the fourth occupant of the 
box. 

At the end of the second act, however, Lissac sud- 
denly caught sight of Vaudrey’s smiling countenance 
beside Granet’s waxed moustaches in the manager’s box. 

“ Ah l ” he exclaimed, “ there is Vaudrey ! ” 

Madame Marsy, however, had already caught sight of 
him. She turned her opera-glass upon the new Cab- 
inet Minister, whose carefully arranged blonde beard was 
parted in the middle and spread out in two light tufts 
over his white necktie, his silky moustaches turned 
jauntily upwards against his fleshy cheeks. Sabine, con- 
tinuing to look at the newcomer through her glass, saw 


PART FIRST 


37 

as he moved within the shadow of the box, this man of 
forty, with a vefy agreeable and still youthful face, and 
as he leaned over the edge of the box to look at the 
audience, she noted that he had a slight bald spot on 
the top of his skull between the fair tufts that adorned 
the sides of his head. 

“Oh ! ” she exclaimed suddenly, “ I thought that he 
was a dark man.” 

“No, no,” answered Lissac, “on the contrary, he was 
a fair, handsome youth when we both studied law here 
in Paris together.” 

Madame Marsy, as if she had been touched by an elec- 
tric spark, turned quickly round on her chair to look at 
Guy, displaying to him as she did so, a lovely face, sur- 
mounting the most beautiful shoulders imaginable. 

“What ! you know the minister so intimately? ” 

“Very intimately.” 

“Then, my dear Lissac, you can do me the greatest 
favor. No, I do not ask you to do it, I insist on 
it.” 

Over the pretty Andalusian features of Madame Ger- 
son, a mocking smile played. 

“ I have guessed it,” she exclaimed. 

“And so have I,” said Lissac. “You wish me to 
present the new Minister of the Interior to you ? You 
have a friend you want appointed to a prefecture.” 

“Not at all. I only want him to take Pichereau’s 
place at my reception. My dear Lissac, my kind Lis- 


38 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

sac,” she continued in dulcet tones, and clasping her little 
gloved hands entreatingly, like a child begging for a toy, 
“ persuade Monsieur Vaudrey to accept this invitation of 
mine and you will be a love, you understand, Lissac, a 
love ! ” 

But Guy had already risen and with a touch of his 
thumb snapping out his crush hat, he opened the door of 
the box, saying to Sabine as he did so : 

“Take notice that I ask nothing in return for this 
favor ! ” 

Madame Marsy began to laugh. 

“Ah ! ” she cried, “that is discreet, but I am willing 
to subscribe to any condition ! ” 

“ Selika is cold beside you,” said Lissac as he dis- 
appeared through the open doorway, “ I will bring you 
your minister in ten minutes.” 

Sabine waited nervously. The curtain had just fallen 
on the third act. The manager’s box was empty. Guy 
would doubtless be obliged to rejoin Vaudrey, and 
neither the minister nor his friend would be seen again. 
Just then some one knocked at the door of the box. 
Monsieur Gerson, overcome by fatigue, and weary as 
only a man can be who is dragged against his will night 
after night to some place of amusement, was dozing in 
the rear of the box. At a word from his wife he got up 
and hastened to open the door. It proved to be an ar- 
tist, an old friend of Philippe Marsy, who came to invite 
Sabine to his studio to “admire” his Envoy that he 


PART FIRST 


39 

had just finished for the Salon. Sabine received him 
graciously, and promised him somewhat stiffly that she 
would do so. She tapped impatiently with her fan upon 
her fingers as the orchestra began to play the prelude to 
the fourth act. It was quite certain that Lissac had 
failed in his mission. 

Suddenly, in the luminous space made by the open 
door, Guy’s elegant figure appeared for a moment, dis- 
appearing immediately to allow a man to pass who en- 
tered, smiling pleasantly, and at whom a group of people, 
standing in the lobby behind, were gazing. He bowed 
as Lissac said to Sabine : 

“Allow me, madame, to present to you His Excel- 
lency the Minister of the Interior.” 

Sabine, suddenly beaming with joy, saw no one but 
Sulpice Vaudrey amongst the group of men in dress- 
clothes who gave way to allow the dignitary to pass. 
She had eyes only for him ! 

She arose, pushing back her chair instinctively, as the 
Minister entered, Monsieur and Madame Gerson standing 
at one side and Sabine on the other and bowing to him, 
— Sabine triumphant, Madame Gerson curious, Monsieur 
Gerson flattered though sleepy. 

Sulpice seated himself at Madame Marsy’s side, with 
the amiable condescension of a great man charmed to 
play the agreeable, and to visit, at the solicitation of a 
friend, a fair woman whom all the world delighted to 
honor. It seemed to him to put the finishing touch to 


40 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


that success and power which had been his only a few 
days. 

He went quite artlessly and by instinct wherever he 
might have the chance to inhale admiring incense. It 
seemed to him as if he were swimming in refreshing 
waters. Everything delighted him. He wished to be 
obliging to every one. It seemed to him but natural 
that a woman of fashion like Sabine should wish to meet 
him and offer him her congratulations, as he himself, with- 
out knowing her, should desire to listen to her felicita- 
tions. To speak in complimentary terms was as natural 
to him as to listen to the compliments of others. 

He delighted in the atmosphere of adulation which 
surrounded him, these two pretty women who smiled 
upon him with a gratitude so impressive, pleased him. 
Sabine appeared especially charming to him when, 
speaking with the captivating grace of a Parisian, she 
said : 

“ I hardly know how to thank my friend Monsieur de 
Lissac for inducing you to listen to the entreaties of one 
who solicits — ” 

“Solicits, madame?” said the minister with an eager- 
ness which seemed already to answer her prayer affirm- 
atively. 

“ I hope your Excellency will consent to honor with 
your presence a reunion of friends at my house — a 
reunion somewhat trivial, for this occasion, but clever 
enough.” 
















4 • 









FART FIRST 


41 


“A reunion?” replied Vaudrey, still smiling. 

“ Monsieur de Lissac has not told you then, what my 
hopes are ? ” 

“We are too old friends, Lissac and I, for him not to 
allow me the pleasure of hearing from your own lips, 
madame, in what way I may be of service to you, or to 
any of your friends.” 

Sabine smiled at this well-turned phrase uttered in the 
most gallant tone. 

Who then, could have told her that Vaudrey was a 
provincial ? An intimate enemy or an intimate friend. 
But he was not at all provincial. On the contrary, Vau- 
drey was quite charming. 

“ Monsieur de Rosas has had the kindness, your Ex- 
cellency, to promise to come to my house next Saturday 
and give a chatty account of his travels. He will be, I am 
quite sure, most proud to know that in his audience—” 

Sulpice neatly and half modestly turned aside the 
compliment that was approaching. 

He knew Monsieur de Rosas. He had read and 
greatly admired some translations of the Persian poets 
by that lettered nobleman, which had been printed for 
circulation only amongst the author’s most intimate friends. 
Vaudrey had first met Monsieur de Rosas at a meeting 
of a scientific society. Rosas was an eminent man as 
well as a poet, and one whom he would be greatly pleased' 
to meet again. A hero of romance as erudite as a Bene- 
dictine. Charming, too, and clever I Something like a 


42 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


Cid who has become a boulevard lounger on returning 
from Central Asia. 

This portrait of Rosas was a clever one indeed, and 
Sabine nodded acquiescence again and again as each 
point was hit off by Vaudrey. He, in his turn, basked 
comfortably in the light of her smiles, and listened with 
pleasure to the sound of his own voice. He could catch 
glimpses through the box curtains from between these two 
charming profiles — one a brunette, the other a blonde — 
of the vast auditorium all crimson and gold, blazing with 
lights and crowded with faces. From this well-dressed 
crowd, from these boxes where one caught sight of white 
gleaming shoulders, half-gloved arms, flower-decked 
heads, sparkling necklaces, flashing glances, it seemed to 
Vaudrey as if a strange, subtle perfume arose — the perfume 
of women, an intoxicating odor, in the midst of this 
radiancy that rivaled the brilliant sun at its rising. 

Upon the stage, amid the dazzling splendor of the 
ballet, in the milky ray of the electric light, the swelling 
skirts whirled, the pink slippers that he had seen but a mo- 
ment before near by, and the gleaming, silver helmets, the 
tinfoil and the spangles shone in the dance. A fairy 
light enveloped all these stage splendors ; and this lux- 
urious ensemble, as seen from the depths of the box, 
seemed to him to be the glory of an unending apotheosis, 
a sort of fete given to celebrate his entrance on his public 
career. 

Then, in the unconcealed effusion of his delight, with- 


PART FIRST 


43 

out any effort at effect, speaking frankly to this woman, 
to Guy, and to Gerson, as if he were communing with 
himself to the mocking accompaniment of this Hindoo 
music, he revealed his joys, his prospects, and his 
dreams. He replied to Sabine’s congratulations by avow- 
ing his intention to devote himself entirely to his country. 

“In short, your Excellency,” she said, “you are really 
going to do great things? ” 

He gazed dreamily around the theatre, smiling as if 
he beheld some lucky vision, and answered : 

“ Really, madame, I accepted office only because I 
felt it was my duty and as a means of doing good. I 
intend to be just — to be honest. I should like to dis- 
cover some unappreciated genius and raise him from the 
obscurity in which an unjust fate has shrouded him, to 
the height where he belongs. If we are to do no better 
than those we have succeeded, it was useless to turn 
them out ! ” 

“ Ah ! pardieu ” said Lissac, while Madame Marsy 
smiled and nodded approval of Vaudrey’s words, “ you 
and your colleagues are just now in the honeymoon of 
your power.” 

“We will endeavor to make this honeymoon of as 
long duration as possible,” laughingly replied Sulpice. 
“ I believe in the case of power, as in marriage, that 
the coming of the April moon is the fault of the parties 
connected with it.” 

“ It takes a shrewd person indeed to know why April 


44 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


moons rise at all ! ” said Guy. Vaudrey’s thougts turned 
involuntarily toward Adrienne, his own pretty wife, who 
was waiting for him in the great lonely apartments at the 
Ministry which they had just taken possession of as they 
might occupy rooms at a hotel. 

He felt a sudden desire to return to her, to tell her of 
the incidents of this evening. Yes, to tell her every- 
thing, even to his visit behind the scenes — but he re- 
mained where he was, not knowing how to take leave of 
Madame Marsy just yet, and she, in her turn, divined 
from the slackened conversation that he was anxious to 
be off. 

“ I was waiting for that strain,” said Madame Marsy 
to Guy, “ now that it is over, I will go.” 

Vaudrey did not reply, awaiting Sabine’s departure, so 
as to conduct her to her carriage. 

People hurried out into the lobbies to see him pass 
by. Upon the staircases, attendants and strangers 
saluted him. It seemed to Vaudrey that he moved 
among those who were in sympathy with him. Lissac 
followed him with Madame Gerson on his arm ; her 
jaded husband sighed for a few hours’ sleep. 

In the sharp, frosty air of a night in January, Sulpice, 
enveloped in otter fur, stood with Madame Marsy on his 
arm, waiting for the appearance of that lady’s carriage, 
which was emerging from the luminous depths of the 
Place, accompanied by another carriage without a mon- 
ogram or crest ; it was that of the minister. 


PART FIRST 


45 

Sulpice gazed before him down the Avenue de 
1’ Opera, brilliant with light, and the bluish tints of the 
Jablockoff electric apparatus flooded him with its bright 
rays ; it seemed to him as if all this brilliancy blazed for 
him, like the flattering apotheosis which had just before 
fallen upon him as he crossed the stage of the Op£ra. 
It seemed like an aureole lighted up especially to en- 
circle him l 

Sabine asked Vaudrey as he escorted her to her car- 
riage : 

“ Madame Vaudrey will, I trust, do me the honor 
to accompany your Excellency to my house? I will 
take the liberty to-morrow of calling on her to invite 
her.” 

The Minister bowed a gracious acquiescence. 

Sabine finally thanked him by a gracious smile : her 
small gloved hand raised the window of the coup£, and 
the carriage was driven off rapidly, amid the din of 
horses’ hoofs. 

“Good-bye,” said Lissac to Vaudrey. 

“ Cannot I offer you a seat in my carriage ? ” 

“ Thank you, but I am not two steps away from the 
Rue d’Aumale.” 

Vaudrey turned towards Madame Gerson ; she and her 
husband bowed low. 

“ May I not set you down at your house, madame ? ” 

“ Your Excellency is very kind, but we have our own 
carriage 1 ” 


46 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ Au revoir,” said Vaudrey to Lissac, “ come and 
breakfast with me to-morrow.” 

“ With pleasure ! ” 

“To the ministry ! ’’ said Vaudrey to the coachman as 
he stepped into his carriage. 

He sank back upon the cushions with a feeling of delight 
as if glad to be alone. All the scenes of that evening 
floated again before his eyes. He felt once more in his 
nostrils the subtle, penetrating perfume of the greenroom, 
he saw again the blue eyes of the little danseuse. The 
admiring looks, the respectful salutes, the smiles of the 
women, the soft, caressing tones of Sabine, and Madame 
Gerson’s pearly teeth, he saw or heard all these again, 
and above all, this word clear as a clarion, triumphant as 
a trumpet’s blast : Success / All this came back again 
to him. 

“You have succeeded ! ” 

He heard Guy’s voice again speaking this to him in 
joyous tones. Succeeded ! It was certainly true. 

Minister ! Was it possible ! He had at his beck and 
call a whole host of functionaries and servitors ! He it 
was who had the power to make the whole machine of 
government move — he, the lawyer from Grenoble — who 
ten years ago would have thought it a great honor to 
have been appointed to a place in the department of 
Isere ! 

All those people whom he could see in the shadow 
of the lighted boulevards buying the newspapers at the 


PART FIRST 


47 

kiosks, would read therein his name and least gesture 
and action. 

“ Monsieur le Ministre has taken up his residence on 
the Place Beauvau. Monsieur Vaudrey this morning 
received the heads of the Bureaus and the personnel of the 
Department of the Ministry of the Interior. Monsieur 
Vaudrey , with the assistance of Monsieur He?iri Jacquier 
of Oise , undersecretary of State , is actively engaged in 
examining the reports of prefects and under-prefects. 
Monsieur will doubtless make some needed reforms in the 
administration of the prefectures Everywhere, in all the 
newspapers, Monsieur Vaudrey ! The Minister of the 
Interior ! He, his name, his words, his projects, his 
deeds ! 

Success ! Yes, it was his, it had come ! 

Never in his wildest visions had he dreamed of the suc- 
cess that he had attained. Never had he expected to 
catch sight of such bright rays as those which now shone 
down upon him from that star, which with the supersti- 
tion of an ambitious man, he had singled out. Success ! 
Success ! 

And now all the world should see what he would do. 
Already in his own little town, in his speeches, during 
the war, at the elections of 1871, and especially at Ver- 
sailles, during the years of struggle and political intrigue, 
in the tribune, or as a commissioner or sub-commissioner, 
he had given proofs of his qualifications as a statesman, 
but the touchstone of man is power. Emerging from his 


4 8 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


serai-obscurity, into the sunshine of success, he would at 
last show the world what he was and what he could do. 
Power ! To command ! To create ! To impress his ideas 
upon a whole nation ! To have succeeded ! succeeded ! 
succeeded ! Sulpice’s dreams were realized at last. 

And whilst the ministerial carriage was driving at a 
gallop towards the Place Beauvau, Sabine, muffled up in 
her furs, her fine skin caressed by the blue-fox border of 
her pelisse, said to herself, quite indifferent to the man 
himself, but delighted to have a minister’s name to 
enroll upon her list of guests : 

“He is a simpleton — Vaudrey — but a very charming 
simpleton, nevertheless.” 

The iron gates of the Place Beauvau were thrown back 
for his Excellency’s carriage to enter. The gravel 
creaked under the wheels, as the coupe turning off to the 
left, stopped under the awning over the door. 

Sulpice alighted. The great door opened to admit 
him. Two white- cravatted servants occupied a bench 
while awaiting the minister’s return. 

Sulpice ran lightly up the great marble staircase lead- 
ing to his private apartments. Handing his hat and 
coat to a servant in the antechamber, he gayly entered 
the little salon, where he found his wife sitting by a table 
reading La Revue by the light of a shaded lamp. At 
the sight of her pretty, fresh young face extended to 
greet him, with her blue eyes and smiling air, at the 
sound of her clear, sweet, but rather timid voice asking a 


PART FIRST 


49 

little anxiously : “Well?” Sulpice took the fair face in 
both his hands and his burning lips imprinted a long 
kiss on the white forehead, over which a few curls of 
golden hair strayed. 

“ Well, my dear Adrienne, I have been greatly inter- 
ested. All the kindness with which I was received, the 
evident delight with which the new cabinet has been 
welcomed by the people, even the grimaces of Pichereau 
whom I met, — if you only knew where — all gave me 
pleasure, delighted me, and yet made me fear. Min- 
ister ! Do you know what I have been thinking of since 
I was made a minister?” 

“ Of what have you been thinking? ” asked the young 
wife, who, with her hands folded, gazed trustingly and 
sweetly into Sulpice’s feverish eyes. 

“ I ? 1 have been telling myself that it is not 

enough to be a minister. One must be a great minis- 
ter ! You understand, Adrienne, a great minister ! ” 

As he spoke he took Adrienne’s hands in his, and the 
young wife glanced up admiringly at this young man 
burning with hope, who stood there before her, declar- 
ing : “ I will be great ! ” 

She had never dreamed of his reaching such heights 
as these on that day when she felt the fingers of her 
fiance trembling in her hand, the day that Sulpice had 
whispered the words in her ear which made her heart 
leap with joy: “I love you, Adrienne, I shall always 
love you — Always ! ” 

4 


5 ° 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


III 

Sulpice Vaudrey had married Adrienne for love. She 
brought to him from the convent at Grenoble where she 
had been educated, the charming innocence of a young 
girl and the innate devotion of a woman. She was 
an orphan with a considerable fortune, but although 
Sulpice had only moderate resources, he had scarcely 
thought of her wealth, not even inquiring of her 
guardian, Doctor Reboux, on the occasion of his formal 
demand for her hand, about the dowry of Mademoiselle 
Gerard. 

He had met her at more than one soiree at Grenoble, 
where she appeared timid, dazzled and retiring, and 
quietly interrogating everything by her sweet glance. 
Some few words exchanged carelessly, music which they 
had listened to side by side, the ordinary everyday inter- 
course in society had made Sulpice acquainted with his 
wife ; but the sight of the pretty blonde — so sweet and 
gentle — the childlike timidity of this young girl, some- 
thing rather pensive in the confiding smile of this 
blooming creature of eighteen summers, had won him 
completely. He was free, and alone, for he had lost, 
but a short time before, the only creature he loved in 


PART FIRST 


51 

the world, his mother, of whom he was the son in the 
double sense of flesh and spirit, by the nourishment of 
her breast and by the patient teaching that she had im- 
planted in his mind. 

He remembered only his father’s dreamy and refined 
face, in the portrait of a young, sad-looking man in a 
lawyer’s black gown, before which he had stood when 
quite small, and spelled out as he might have lisped 
a prayer, the four letters : papa. Alone in this little 
town of Grenoble, for which he had left his native 
village ot 3aint-Laurent-du-Pont, he had, just before 
meeting Adrienne, fallen a victim to a profound melan- 
choly and realized the necessity of deciding upon his 
career. 

He was then thirty-four. Except the years spent in 
the study of law at Paris amid the turmoil of the left 
bank of the Seine, he had always lived in the province — 
his own province of Dauphin^. He had grown up in 
the old house at Saint-Laurent, where every nook and 
corner kept for him its own sweet memory of his child- 
hood and youth. The great white drawing-room w’ith its 
wainscotings of the time of Louis XVI., which opened 
out upon a flight of steps leading down into a terraced 
garden; the portraits of obscure ancestors: lawyers in 
powdered wigs and wearing the robes of the members 
of the Third estate, fat and rosy with double chins rest- 
ing upon their broad cravats, amiable old ladies with 
oddly arranged hair and flowered gowns, coquettish still 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


5 2 

as they smiled in their oval, wooden frames, and then the 
old books in their old-fashioned bindings slumbering in a 
great bookcase with glass doors, or piled up on shelves 
below the fowling-pieces, the game-bags and the powder- 
horns. 

With this dwelling of which he thought so often now, 
his whole past was linked, about it still clung something 
of its past poetry, and it was sacred through the memo- 
ries it preserved, and as the scene of the unforgotten 
joys of childhood. He could see again, the great stone- 
flagged kitchen, where they sat up at nights telling stories, 
the chamber above it, the bed with its heavy serge cur- 
tains, where he lay — sometimes shaking with terror — all 
alone, adjoining the room once occupied by his father, 
and the moonlight shining through the tall old trees in 
the courtyard outside, that entering by the half-open 
blinds cast shadows like trembling lace on the wall oppo- 
site to him.. It seemed to Sulpice then that he could 
hear the sounds of the weird demon’s chase as told by 
old Catherine, the cook, in bated tones during their vigils. 

It was there that he went every year to pass his holi- 
days with his mother, who had had the courage to send 
him away, — just as during winter she had plunged him 
into cold water— to the Lyceum at Grenoble, whence he 
would return to Saint- Laurent-du-Pont, “ so thin, poor 
child ! ” as his mother said. 

And how fat she would send him back again to school, 
— to make the masters ashamed of their stinginess. 


PART FIRST 


53 

How pleasant were the reminiscences of those sunny 
days amongst the mountains, the excursions to Grande 
Chartreuse, where the murmuring brook trickled among 
the rocks, the halts at Guiers-Mort or under the trees in 
the stillness of a drowsy day in summer ; how delightful 
to stretch one’s self out at the foot of the cliffs or on a 
grassy slope with a book, pausing now and then to in- 
dulge in day-dreams or glance up at the fleecy clouds 
floating in the blue sky above his head and watch them 
gathering, then vanishing and melting away like smoke 
wreaths ! Ah ! how sweet were those long, idle days full 
of dreams, when the noise of the waterfall dashing over 
the rocks lulled the senses like some merry song, or 
a nurse’s tender, crooning lullaby. 

In those days Sulpice made no plans for his future, 
where he would go, what he would do, or what would be- 
come of him; but he felt within himself unbounded 
hope, a hope as limitless and bright as the azure sky 
above him, the inspiration of devotion, love and poetry. 
He asked himself whether he should be a missionary or 
a representative of the people. It seemed to him that 
his heart was large enough to contain a world, and as he 
grew up he began to ask himself the terrible question : 
“ Will a woman ever love me ? ” 

To be loved ! What a dream ! One day he put this 
question to one of his comrades at college, Guy de 
Lissac, the son of a country gentleman in the neighbor- 
hood, who answered : 


54 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ Booby ! every one is loved some day or other, and 
there are some who are loved even too much ! ” 

Sulpice had received a patriarchal and half-puritanical 
training, but softened materially by his mother’s almost 
excessive care, it had left, as it were, a kind of poetic 
perfume that clung about him and never left him. 

Even during the days of his struggle in crowded Paris, 
in the heat of political strife, his thoughts would fly back 
to the old home at Saint- Laurent-du-Pont, recalling to 
mind the old armchair where his father used to sit, the 
father whose kiss he had never known, hearing again his 
mother’s voice from the great oak staircase with its heavy 
balusters, and he recalled at the same moment, the land- 
scape with its living figures, the spotted, steel-colored 
guinea-fowl screaming from the branches of the elms, the 
vineyard hands returning from work, to trample with 
bare feet the great clusters of grapes piled up in the 
wine-vat in the cellar whose odor intoxicated ! Even as 
a representative or minister, musing over his past that 
seemed but yesterday, Sulpice wandered again in thought 
to this quiet country spot, so loved by him, so sweet, so 
still, reposing in the silence of provincial calm — far away, 
removed from all the noise and bustle of Paris. 

The farmers of Dauphine generally think of making 
their sons tillers of the soil, sending them to school and 
to college, perhaps to begin later the study of law or 
medicine, but welcoming them joyfully back again to their 
native fields, to their farms, where the youths soon forget 


PART FIRST 


55 

all they may have learned of the Code or the Codex and 
lead the healthy, hardy life of the country. Good, 
well-built fellows, their chests enlarged by their daily 
exercise, their thighs strengthened by mountain-climbing, 
gay young men, liking to hunt and drink on the banks of 
the Is£re and caring more for good harvests than for the 
songs of the wind amongst the branches of the poplars 
upon the river-banks. 

Sulpice had an old uncle on his father’s side who pro- 
posed to his sister-in-law to give up his broad acres — a 
fortune in themselves — to Sulpice, if his nephew would 
consent to marry his daughter. Sulpice refused. He 
would not marry for money. 

“Fiddle-faddle ! ” cried his uncle. Sickly sentiment- 
ality ! If he cultivates that grain , my brother’s son will 
not make much headway. 

“There is where you are mistaken, brother-in-law. 
What my poor Raymond had not time to become, his 
child will be : a lawyer at once eloquent and honest.” 

“Well, well,” replied the uncle, “but he shall not have 
my girl.” 

Sulpice, after finishing his studies at Paris, returned to 
his mother at Grenoble, took her away from the old 
house at Saint-Laurent and installed her in the town with 
himself, where he began the practice of law and attracted 
everybody’s attention from the first. He made pleading 
a sacred office and not a trade. Everyone was astonished 
that he had not remained in Paris. 


56 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

Why? He loved his native province, the banks of the 
Is&re, the healthy, poetic atmosphere hanging over the 
desert of the Chartreuse and the snows of the Grand- 
Som. A talented man could make his way anywhere, 
— moreover, it was his pleasure to consider it a duty 
not to leave this secluded corner cf the earth where 
he would cause freedom of speech to be known. Sul- 
pice, whose heart was open to every ardent and gener- 
ous manifestation of human thought, had imbibed from 
his mother, as well as from his father’s writings and 
books, and from th ^Encyclopedia that Raymond Vaudrey 
had interlined with notes and reflections, not merely 
traditional information, but also, so to speak, the baptism 
of liberty. He had lived in the feverish days of the past 
eighty years, through his reading of the Gazette Nationale 
of those stormy days. The speeches that he found in 
those pages — speeches that still burned like uncooled lava 
— of Mirabeau, Barnave, and Condorcet, a son of Gre- 
noble, seemed to impart a glow to his fingers and fire to 
his glance. Then, too, the magnificent dreams of free- 
dom proclaimed from the tribune inflamed his mind and 
made his heart beat fast. He saw as in a vision 
applauding crowds, tricolors gleaming in the clear and 
golden sunlight, processions moving, files marching past, 
and heard eternal truths proclaimed and acclaimed. 

His mother smiled at all this enthusiasm. She did 
not however try to repress it. It would vanish at the 
touch of years, just as the leaves of the trees fly before 


PART FIRST 


57 

the winds of October. And besides, the dear woman 
herself was in sympathy with his hopes, his dreams and 
visions, remembering that her lost Raymond had loved 
what his son in his turn so much adored. 

The termination of the war and the fall of the empire 
found Sulpice a popular man at Grenoble ; loved by all, 
by the populace who knew how generous he was, and by 
the middle-class who regarded him as a prudent man, 
hence the February elections saw him sent to Bordeaux, 
a member of the National Assembly. He had just 
passed his thirty-fourth year. 

His mother lived long enough to see this event, and 
to be dazzled by this brilliant launch on his career. 

With what deep emotion, even to-day, Vaudrey re- 
called that Sunday in February, a foul, wet day, when he 
returned home in a closed carriage with a friend, from 
an electioneering tour. The day before he had made a 
speech in a wineshop to an audience of peasants, who 
listened, open-mouthed, but withal suspicious, examining 
their candidate as they would have handled a beast 
offered at the market, and who, step by step, applauded 
his remarks, stretching out their rasp-like hands as he 
left them, and crying out : “ You are our man ! ” 

That very morning he returned to Grenoble in the 
rain, passing through villages where the posters bearing 
his name and those of his friends, half-demolished by 
the rain, flapped dismally in the wind. Before the 
mayor’s office, little groups were gathered, peaceful folk ; 


58 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

a gendarme paced slowly to and fro, and bulletins littered 
the muddy thoroughfare. But there was no excitement. 
Nothing more. Not even a quickened pulse-beat was 
felt by those stolid men upon whose votes depended the 
fate of the nation. Sulpice could not help marvelling at 
so much indifference, but he reflected that it was thus 
throughout all France, and that not only his name but 
the destiny of the nation was involved in the struggle. 

Moreover, at night, with what feverish transport he 
watched the returns of the election as they reached 
the Palais de Justice black with the crowd, and filled 
with uproar ! With what a fearfully fast-beating heart 
he saw the rapidly swelling number of ballots cast for 
him ! Dispatches came, and pedestrians hurried in 
from the country, waving their bulletins above their 
heads, and Sulpice heard on every lip the same cry : 
“ Vaudrey leads ! ” 

Some cried bravo, while others clapped their hands. 
A crowd quickly gathered about Vaudrey. It already 
seemed to him that he was lifted up by a great wave and 
carried to a new world. 

A friend seized him by the arm and drew him into a 
corner of the hall, away from the others, and hurriedly 
said : “ You know I am not one to ask much of you, to 
ask anything of you, in fact. I merely reckon on a 
receivership. That is easily done, eh ? A mere noth- 
ing?” 

Sulpice, whose feelings were overcome by this great 


PART FIRST 


59 

popular consecration, felt a kind of anger stir his heart 
against this solicitor, who, in the triumph of a great 
popular cause, saw only a means of self-advance- 
ment, of securing an appointment. The deputy — for 
he was a deputy now, each commune adding its total 
to the Vaudrey vote — was moved by a feeling of 
disgust. 

The crowd followed him home that evening, shouting 
in triumph. 

Amid the joy of victory, Sulpice felt the burden of 
the anxiety caused by duties to be done : a treaty of peace 
to be signed, and what a peace ! Must he, alas ! append 
his signature to a document devoted to the dismember- 
ment of his country? Far into the night he stood in 
reverie in his chamber, his brow resting against the cold 
window-pane. 

He retired to rest very late, and arose with the gray 
dawn of February, but without having slept. 

He looked across the street to a convent garden, with 
its square and lozenge-shaped beds regularly arranged, its 
bare trees and box- wood borders, that he had often gazed 
upon. Some nuns in their black robes passed slowly 
across this cold and calm horizon that for many years 
had also been the range of his vision. 

Henceforth this familiar spot, this sad garden, whose 
cloistral associations charmed him, would be lost to his 
view. It was Paris now that awaited him, feverish Paris, 
burning with anger and odorous of saltpetre. Its very 


60 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

pavements must burn. Sulpice was in haste, however, 
to see it once more, to pass with head aloft beneath the 
garrets where he had once dreamed as a student, fagging 
and striving to get knowledge. How often he would 
regret that convent garden, those familiar flower-beds, 
the deep silence that enveloped him as he sat working 
by the open window, the passage of a bird near him, as 
if to fan him with its wing, and the vague murmur of the 
canticles of the sisters ascending to his window like the 
echo of a prayer ! 

In the recess during one of the years following his 
election to the Assembly, he married Mademoiselle 
Gerard. Doctor Reboux, her guardian, charmed to give 
his ward to a man with a future like Vaudrey’s, had not 
hesitated long about consenting to the marriage. Adri- 
enne delighted Sulpice, and the young girl herself was 
quite happy to be chosen by this good-natured, distin- 
guished young man whom everybody at Grenoble, not 
excepting his political adversaries, admired and spoke 
well of. With large, brilliant, black eyes lighting up a 
thin, fair face, a full beard, a high forehead with a deep 
furrow between the eyebrows, giving to his usually wan- 
dering, keen and restless glance a' somewhat contempla- 
tive expression, Sulpice was a decidedly attractive man. 
He was not a handsome or a charming fellow, but a 
good-natured, agreeable, refined man, a fine conversa- 
tionalist, persuasive, enthusiastic and alert ; learned with- 
out being pedantic, a man who could inspire in a young 


PART FIRST 


61 


girl a perfect passion. Adrienne joyfully married him, 
as he had sought her from love. 

And now all the poetry and romance of his youth 
blossomed again in his heart, in the thick of the 
political struggle in which he was engaged ; he forgot, 
amid the idyllic scenes of domestic life, the storms of 
Versailles, the political troubles, forebodings as to the 
future, all anxieties of the present, the routine life of the 
Assembly into which he plunged with all his mind, and 
the excitement of his labors, his debates and his duties. 

Sulpice thought again and again of the summer morn- 
ing when he led his wife to the altar, and compared it to a 
day’s halt in the course of a journey under the blaze of 
the sun ; he recalled the old house full of noisy stir, the 
crowd of relatives and friends in festive attire, the stamp- 
ing of the horses’ feet before the great open gate, the 
neighbors standing at the windows, and the little street- 
boys scuffling upon the pavement, all the joyous bustle 
of that happy day. It seemed to Sulpice that the sun- 
light came streaming in with Adrienne’s entrance into 
the vast salon, from the walls of which her pictured an- 
cestresses in their huge leg-of-mutton sleeves seemed to 
smile at her. 

Beneath the orange wreath sent from Paris, her face 
expressed the happy, surprised,, and sweetly anxious look 
of a young communicant wrapped in her veil. 

Sulpice had never seen her look more beautiful. How 
prettily she came towards him, blushing vividly, and hold- 


62 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

ing out her two little white gloved hands ! He, some- 
what bored by the company that surrounded them, cast 
an involuntary glance at a mirror hanging opposite and 
decided that he looked awkward and formal with his 
hair too carefully arranged. How they had laughed 
since then and always with new pleasure at these recol- 
lections, so sweet even now. 

His happiness on that joyous day would have been 
complete had his mother been present, when in the 
presence of the old priest who had instructed Adrienne 
in her catechism, Sulpice stood forward and took by its 
velvet shield the taper that seemed so light to him, and 
awkwardly held the wafer that the priest extended to 
him. It was a great event in Grenoble when the leader 
of the Liberal Party, who headed the list at the last 
election, was seen being married like a believing bour- 
geois. The organ pealed forth its tender vibrations, 
some Christmas anthem, mysterious and tremulous, like 
an alleluia sounding through the aisles of centuries — 
the light streamed through the window in floods and 
rested upon Adrienne who was kneeling with her child- 
like head leaning on her gloved hands, kissing her fair 
locks with sunlight and illumining the gleaming satin 
of her dress with its long train spreading out over the 
carpet. 

Sulpice took away from this ceremony in the presence 
of a crowded congregation, an impression at once per- 
fumed and dazzling ; the perfumes of flowers, the play 


PART FIRST 63 

of light, the greetings of the organ, and within and 
about him, all the intoxication of love, singing a song of 
happiness. 

All that was now far away ! nearly six years had 
elapsed since that day, six years of bitter struggle, dur- 
ing which Vaudrey fought the harder, defended his ideas 
of liberty with fervid eloquence, disputed step by step, 
and through intense work came to the front, living at 
Paris just as he did in the province, having his books 
brought from there to his apartment in the Rue de la 
Chauss£e d’Antin, close to the railroad that he took 
every morning when he regretfully left Adrienne, Adri- 
enne to whom he returned every evening that political 
meetings and protracted sittings did not rob him of those 
happy evenings, which were in truth the only evenings 
that he really lived. 

Adrienne seldom went out, not caring to display her- 
self and shunning the bustle, living at Paris, as at Gre- 
noble, in peaceful seclusion, caring only for the existence 
of her husband, his work, and his speeches that he pre- 
pared with so much courageous labor. She sat up with 
him until very late, glancing over the books, the sum- 
maries of the laws and the old parliamentary reports. 

At times she was terrified at the ardor with which Sul- 
pice devoted himself to these occupations. She greatly 
desired to take her part and was grieved at being unable to 
assist him by writing from his dictation, or by examining 
these old books. She felt terribly anxious when Vaudrey 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


64 

had to make a speech from the tribune. She dared not 
go to hear him, but knowing that he was to speak, 
she had not the courage to remain at home. Anxiously 
she ascended to the public gallery. She shuddered and 
was almost ready to faint, when she heard the voice of 
the president break what seemed to her an icy silence, 
with the words : Monsieur Vaudrey has the ear of the 
Assembly. 

The sound of Sulpice’s voice seemed changed to her. 
Fearfully she asked herself if fright was strangling him. 
She dared not look at him. It seemed to her that the 
people were laughing, making a disturbance and cough- 
ing, but not listening to him. Why had she come ? She 
would never do so again. An icy chill took possession 
of her. Then suddenly she heard a storm of applause 
that seemed like an outburst of sympathy. Hands were 
clapped, voices applauded. She half raised herself, and 
leaning upon the rail of the gallery, saw Sulpice between 
the crowded heads, towering above the immense audi- 
ence, radiant and calm, standing with his arms folded or 
his hands resting on the tribune, below the chair occu- 
pied by a motionless, white-cravatted man, and throwing 
back his fair head, hurling, as from a full heart, his 
words, his wishes and his faith. All this she saw with 
supreme happiness and felt proud of the man whose 
name she bore. 

At that moment, she would fain have cried out to 
every one that she was his, that she adored him, that he 


PART FIRST 65 

was her pride, even as she was his joy ! She would like 
to have folded him to her, to cling to his neck and to 
repeat before all that crowd : I love you / 

But she reserved all her tender — effusions for the inti- 
macy of their home, in order to calm the enthusiasm, 
oftentimes desperate, of this nervous man whom every- 
thing threw into a feverish excitement, this grand man, 
as they called him at Grenoble, who was for her only a 
great child whom she adored and kept in check by her 
girlish devotion combined with her motherly, delicate 
attentions. 

Vaudrey, however, more ambitious to do good than to 
obtain power, and spending his life in the conflicts of 
the Chamber, saw the years slipping away without real- 
izing that he was making any progress, not a single step 
forward in the direction of his goal. Since the war, the 
years had passed for him as well as for those of his gen- 
eration, with confusing rapidity, and suddenly, all at 
once, after having been in some sense slumbering, flatter- 
ing himself that a man of thirty has a future before him, 
he was rudely awakened to the astonishing truth that he 
was forty. 

Forty ! Sulpice had experienced a certain melancholy 
in advancing the figure by ten, and whatever position he 
had acquired within his party, within the circle of his 
friends, his dream was to reach still higher, he was tired 
of playing second-rate parts, and eager to stand before 
the footlights in full blaze, in the first role. 

5 


66 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

In the snug interior that Adrienne furnished, he en- 
joyed all material happiness. She soothed him, brought 
his dreams back to the region of the real, terrified at 
times by his discouragements, his anger, and still more 
by his illusions concerning men and things. 

Sulpice often reproached her for having clipped the 
wings of his ambition. 

“ I ! ” she would say, “ it is rather the fans of your 
windmills that I break, you Don Quixote ! ” 

He would then smile at her, and look earnestly into 
the depths of the timid creature’s lovely blue eyes, caus- 
ing her to blush as if ashamed of having seemed to be 
witty. 

Her chief aim was to be the devoted, loving friend of 
this man whom she thought so superior to herself, and 
although she was totally ignorant of political intrigues, 
she was by virtue of the mere instinct of love, his best 
and most perspicacious adviser and felt delighted only 
when Vaudrey, by chance, listened to her counsel. 

“ I love you so dearly ! ” she confessed with the 
unlimited candor of a poor creature who has but a 
single affection, a single pretext for loving. 

He saw in the life he led, only the penumbra : his 
neglected youth, his hopes fled, his fears, the disgust 
which at times filled him as he thought of the never- 
ending recommencements and trickeries of political life. 
So dearly cherished, so beloved, it seemed to him, never- 
theless, that his life lacked something. He would have 


PART FIRST 67 

liked a child, a son to bring up, a domestic tie, since 
political conditions prevented him from accomplishing a 
civic duty. Ah ! yes, a son, a being to mould, a brow 
to kiss, a soul to fashion after the image of his own, a 
child who would not know all the sorrows of life that his 
own generation had laid on him ! Perhaps it was only a 
child that he needed. Something, however, he evidently 
lacked. 

Still he smiled, always in love with that young woman of 
twenty-four years, delicate, slender, and full of the fears and 
artlessness of a child. Accustomed to the quiet solitude 
of the house of her guardian, she, when at Paris, in her 
husband’s study, arranging his books, his papers, his legis- 
lative plans and reports, sought to surround her dear Sul- 
pice with the comforting felicity of bourgeois happiness 
that was enjoyed calmly, like a cordial sipped at the fire- 
side. 

Then suddenly one day, the news of a startling political 
change broke in on this household. 

Sulpice reached home one evening at one and the 
same time nervous, anxious, and happy. 

His name was on almost every lip, in connection with 
a ministerial combination. His last speech on domestic 
policy had more than ever brought him into prominence 
and he was considered to have boldly contributed to the 
development of a fearful crisis. 

A minister ! he might, before the morning, be a min- 
ister ! His policy was triumphant. 


68 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


The advocate Collard — of Nantes, — who was pointed 
out as the future head of the Cabinet, was one of his in- 
timate friends. It was suggested — positively — that Sul- 
pice should be intrusted with one of the most important 
portfolios , that of the Interior or of Foreign Affairs, the 
lesser portfolios being considered those of Public Instruc 
tion and of Agriculture and Commerce, the former of 
which concerns itself with the spiritual welfare of the 
people, and the latter with their food supply. 

Sulpice told all this to Adrienne, while mechanically 
and without appetite, eating his dinner. 

There was to be a meeting of his coterie at eight 
o’clock. It was already seven. He hurried. 

Adrienne saw that he was very pale. She experienced 
a strange sensation, evidently a joyful one although 
mingled with anxiety. Politics drew him away from his 
wife so frequently, and for so long a time, that she was 
already compelled to live in such solitude that the 
secluded creature wondered if in future she would not 
be condemned to still greater isolation. But all anxiety 
disappeared under the influence of Sulpice’s manifest 
joy. He was feverishly impatient. It seemed to him 
that never had he known so decisive a moment in his life. 

The sound of the bell, suddenly ringing out its clear 
note in the silence, caused him to start. 

The dining-room door was opened by a servant, who 
handed a letter to Vaudrey, bearing on one corner of the 
envelope the word : Urgent. 


PART FIRST 


6 9 


Sulpice recognized the writing. 

It was from Collard of Nantes. 

Adrienne saw her husband’s cheek flush as he read 
this letter, which Sulpice promptly handed her, while his 
eyes sparkled with delight. 

“ It is done ! Read ! ” 

Adrienne turned pale. 

Collard notified his “ colleague ” that the ministerial 
combination of which he was the head, had succeeded. 
The President awaited at the Elys£e the arrival of the 
new ministers. He tendered Vaudrey the portfolio of the 
Interior. 

“ A minister ! ” said Adrienne, now overcome with 
delight. 

Vaudrey had risen and a little uneasy, was mechani- 
cally searching for something, still holding his napkin in 
his hand. 

“ My hat,” he said. “ My overcoat. A carriage.” 

Adrienne, with her hands clasped in a sort of childish 
admiration, looked at him as if he had become suddenly 
transformed. All his being, in fact, expressed complete 
satisfaction. He embraced Adrienne almost frantically, 
kissed her again and again, and left her, then descended 
the staircase with the speed of a lover hastening to a 
rendezvous. 

This political honeymoon was still at its height at the 
moment when the delighted Vaudrey, seeing everything 
rosy-hued, was satisfying his astonished curiosity in the 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


7 ° 

greenroom of the ballet. He entered office, animated 
by all the good purposes inspired by absolute faith. It 
seemed to him that he was about to save the world, to 
regenerate the government, and to destroy abuses. 

“ It is very difficult to become a minister,” he said, 
smiling, “ but nothing is easier than to be a great minister. 
It only demands a determination to do good ! ” 

“And the power to do it,” replied his friend Granet, 
somewhat ironically. 

What ! power? Nothing was more simple, since 
Vaudrey held the reins of power ! — If others wrecked the 
hopes of their friends, it was because they had not dared, 
because they had not the will ! 

They would now see what he would do himself ! Not 
to-morrow either, nor in a month — but at once. 

He entered the ministry boldly, like a good-natured 
despot, determined to reform, study and rearrange every- 
thing ; and a victim to the feverish and glorious zeal of a 
neophyte, he was a little surprised to encounter, at the 
very outset, the obstinate resistance of routine, ignor- 
ance, and the unyielding mechanism of that vast machine, 
more eternal than empires : Ad-min-is-tra-tion. 

Bah ! he would have satisfaction ! Patience would 
overcome all. After all, time is on one’s side. 

“Time ? Already ! ” replied Granet, who was a per- 
petual scoffer. 

Adrienne, overwhelmed with surprise, enjoyed the 
reflections from the golden aurora of power that so 


PART FIRST 


71 

sweetly tinted Sulpice’s life. She shared her husband’s 
triumphs without haughtiness, and now, however she 
might love her domestic life, it was incumbent upon her 
to pass more of her time in society than formerly, to 
show herself \ as Sulpice said, and, surrounded by the 
success and flattery she enjoyed, she felt that that obliga- 
tion was only an added joy, whose contentment she re- 
flected on her husband. 

When she entered a salon, she was greeted with a 
flattering murmur of admiration and good-natured curi- 
osity. The women looked at her and the men sur- 
rounded her. 

“ Madame Vaudrey ? ” 

“The minister’s wife ! ” 

“ Charming ! ” 

“ Quite young ! ” 

“ Somewhat provincial ! ” 

“ So much the more attractive ! ” 

“ That is true, as fresh as a peach ! ” 

She endeavored to atone by a gracious, very sincere, 
modesty, for the enviable position in which chance had 
suddenly placed her. It was said of her that she ac- 
cepted a compliment as timidly as a boarding-school 
miss receives a prize. They forgave her for retaining 
her rosy cheeks because of her white and exquisitely 
shaped hands. She was not considered to be “ trop de 
Grenoble .” Witty people called her the pretty Dauphi- 
noise , and the flatterers the little Dauphine. 


72 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


In short, her success was great ! So said the chron- 
iclers, the entrance of a fashionable woman into a salon 
being daily compared with that of an actress on the stage. 

It was especially because Vaudrey appeared to be so 
happy, that his young wife was so contented. She felt 
none of the vainglory of power. Generally alone in the 
vast, deserted apartments of the ministry, with all their 
commonplace, luxurious appointments, she more than 
once regretted the home in the Chauss£e-d’Antin, where 
they again enjoyed — but too rarely — the cherished soli- 
tude of the first months of their union renewed, the 
familiar chats of the Grenoble days, the prolonged 
conversations, exchanges of thoughts, hopes and 
reminiscences— already ! only recollections, — and she 
sometimes said to Sulpice, who was feverishly excited 
and glowed with delight at having reached the sum- 
mit of power : 

“Do you know what this place suggests to me? 
Why, living in a hotel ! ” 

“ And you are right,” Vaudrey gaily answered, “ we 
are at a hotel, but it is the hotel in which the will of 
France lodges ! ” 

“ You understand, my dear, that if you are 
happy — ” 

“ Very happy ! it is only now that I can show what I 
am made of. You shall see, Adrienne, you shall see 
what I will do and become within a year.” 

Within a year i 


PART FIRST 


73 


IV 


Guy de Lissac occupied a small summer-house form- 
ing a residence situated at the end of a court on Rue 
D’Aumale. He had given carte-blanche for the ar- 
rangement of this bachelor’s nest, — a nest in which 
sitting-hens without eggs succeeded each other rapidly, 
— to one of those upholsterers who installed, in regu- 
lation style, the knick-knacks so much in vogue, 
and who sell at very high prices to Bourse oper- 
ators and courtesans, the spurious Clodions and 
imitation Boulles that they pick up by chance at 
auction sales. 

Lissac, who had sufficient taste to discover artistic 
nuggets in the gutters of Paris, had found it very con- 
venient to wake up one fine morning in a little mansion 
crowded with Japanese bric-a-brac, Chinese satin dra- 
peries, tapestries, Renaissance chests and terra-cotta 
figures writhing upon their sculptured bases. The 
upholsterer had taste, Lissac had money. The knick- 
knacks were genuine. There was a coquettish attrac- 
tiveness about the abode that made itself evident in 
every detail. 

This bachelor’s suite lacked, however, something per- 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


74 

sonal, something living, some cherished object, the mark 
of some particular taste, some passion for a period, 
for a thing, or pictures or books. In this jumble of 
ill-matched curiosities, where ivory netzkes on tables 
surrounded Barye bronzes and Dresden figures, there 
lacked some evidence of an individual character that 
would give a dominant tone, an original key, to the 
collection. This worldly dwelling, with its white lac- 
quered bed and Louis XV. canopy and its heads of 
birds carved in wood like the queen’s bed at Trianon, 
vaguely resembled the apartments of a fashionable 
woman. 

But Guy had hung around here and there a Samourai 
sabre, Malay krises, Oriental daggers in purple velvet 
sheaths, and upon the green tapestry background of the 
antechamber a panoply on which keen-bladed swords 
with steel guards were mingled with Scotch claymores 
with silver hilts, thus giving a masculine character to 
this hotel of a fashionable lounger, steeped with the 
odor of ylang-ylang like the little house of a pretty 
courtesan. 

This Guy enjoyed in Paris a free and easy life, leav- 
ing to Vaudrey, his old college-comrade at Grenoble, 
the pursuit of the pleasures of political life, and, as 
Lissac said in that bantering tone which is peculiar to 
Parisian gossip, the relish of the “ sweets of power”; 
for himself, what kept him in Paris was Paris itself, just 
that and nothing more : — its pleasures, its first nights, 


PART FIRST 


75 

its surprises, its women, that flavor of scandal and per- 
fume of refined immorality that seemed peculiar to his 
time and surroundings. 

He had squandered two fortunes, one after the other, 
without feeling any regret , he had made a brush at 
journalism, tried finance, won at the Bourse, lost at the 
clubs, knew everybody and was known by all, had a 
smiling lip, was sound of tooth, loved the girls, was 
dreaded by the men, was of fine appearance, and was 
unquestionably noble, which permitted him to enjoy all 
the frolics of Bohemian life without sullying himself, 
having always discovered a forgotten uncle or met some 
considerate friend to pay his gambling debts and adjust 
his differences on the Bourse speculations just at the 
very nick of time ; just now he was well in the saddle 
and decidedly attractive, nimble of body and had a 
well-lined pocket, delighted, not disliking life, which 
seemed to him a term of imprisonment to be passed 
merrily — a Parisian to the finger-tips and to the bottom 
of his soul, worse than a Parisian, in fact, a Parisianized 
provincial inoculated with Parisine, just as certain sick 
persons are with morphine, judging men by their wit, 
actions by their results, women by the size of their 
gloves; as sceptical as the devil, wicked in speech and 
considerate in thought, still agile at forty, claiming even 
that this is man’s best time — the period of fortune and 
gallantry — sliding along in life and taking things as he 
found them, wisely considering that a day’s snow or rain 


76 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

lasts no longer than a day’s sunshine, and that, after all, 
a wretched night is soon over. 

On leaving Vaudrey the previous night, Lissac had 
passed part of the night at his club on Place Vendome. 
He had played and won. He had gone to sleep over a 
fashionable novel, very faithfully written, but wearisome 
in the extreme, and he had awakened late and some- 
what heavy-headed. There were fringes of snow upon 
the window-sills and upon the house facing his little 
mansion. The roofs were hidden under a large white 
sheet and half lost in the grayish-white background of 
the sky. 

“Detestable weather ! So much the better,” thought 
Lissac, “ I shall have no visitors.” 

“ I will see no one,” he said to his servant. “ In 
such weather no one but borrowers will come.” 

He had just finished his dejeuner, plunging a Russian 
enamelled silver spoon into his egg, his tea smoking at 
his side in a burnished silver teapot with Japanese 
designs, when, notwithstanding his orders, the servant 
handed him a card written in pencil on a scrap of paper 
torn from a note-book. 

“ It is not a borrower, monsieur ! ” 

Guy seized the paper disdainfully, thinking, in spite 
of the servant’s opinion, that he would find the name of 
a beggar who had not even had his name printed on a 
piece of Bristol-board, and, adjusting his glass, he de- 
ciphered the fine writing on the paper ; then after in- 


PART FIRST 


77 

voluntarily exclaiming: Ah! bah! and well! well! 
greatly astonished, he said as he rose : 

“ Show her in ! ” 

He had thrown on a chair his damask napkin of Mus- 
covite pattern, and instinctively glanced at himself in the 
mirror, just as a coquette might do before a rendezvous, 
smoothing out his flannel vest and spreading out his 
cravat that only half-fastened the blue foulard collar of 
his dressing-gown. 

At the moment that he was examining the folds made 
on his red leather slippers by his ample flannel trousers, 
a woman half-raised the satin portiere, and, standing 
within a frame formed by the folds of yellow satin, 
looked at the young man, displaying her brilliant teeth 
as she smilingly said : 

“ Good-morning, Guy ! ” 

Lissac went straight toward her with outstretched hands. 

She allowed the large satin portiere to fall behind her, 
and after having permitted her little suede gloved hands 
to be raised for a moment, she boldly abandoned them 
to Guy, laughing the while, as they looked at each other 
face to face. He betrayed some little astonishment, 
gazing at her as a person examines one whom one has 
not seen for a long time, and the young woman raised 
her head unabashed, displaying her features in full light, 
as if submitting to an inspection with confidence. 

“You did not expect me, eh?” 

“ I confess — ” 


78 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ Doubtless it is a considerable time since you thought 
of me.” 

Guy was inclined to bow and as his only reply, to kiss 
the tips of her fingers ; but he reflected that since they 
last met, the parting of his brown locks had been devil- 
ishly widened, and he remained standing, answering with 
the conceit of a handsome man : 

“ You are mistaken, I often think of you.” 

She had, with a sweeping glance around the room, 
examined the furniture of the apartment, the framed 
pictures, the designs and the gilding, and, on sitting 
down near the fire with her little feet crossed, she said : 

“ Very stylishly ensconced ! You always had good 
taste, I know, my dear Guy.” 

“ I have less now than formerly, my dear Marianne,” 
he said giving to this airy remark the turn of a compli- 
ment. 

Marianne shrugged her shoulders and smiled. 

“Do you find me very much altered?” she asked 
abruptly. 

“Yes, rejuvenated.” 

“ I don’t believe a word of it.” 

“Upon my honor.” 

“ You look like a communicant.” 

“Good heavens ! what kind?” said Marianne, laugh- 
ing in a clear, ringing, but slightly convulsive tone. 

He was still looking at her curiously, seated thus near 
the fireplace. 


PART FIRST 


79 

The bright and sparkling fire cast its reflections on 
the gold frames in waving and rosy tints that bright- 
ened the somewhat pale complexion of this young 
woman and imparted a warm tint to her small and bril- 
liant gray eyes. She half turned her fair face toward 
him, her retrousse nose was tiny, spirituelle and mobile, 
her large sensuous mouth was provoking and seductive, 
and suggested by its upturned corners, encouragement 
or a challenge. 

She had allowed her cloak, whose fur trimming was 
well-worn, to slip from her shoulders, exposing her form 
to the waist; she trembled slightly in her tight-fitting 
dress, and golden tints played on her bare neck, which 
was almost hidden under the waves of her copper- 
colored hair. 

She had just taken off her suede gloves with a jerky 
movement and was abstractedly twisting them between 
her fingers. 

In spite of the somewhat depressing effect of her 
worn garments, she displayed a natural elegance, a per- 
fect form and graceful movements, and Guy, accustomed 
as he was to estimate at a glance the material condition 
of people, divined that this woman felt some embarrass- 
ment. She whom he had known four or five years previ- 
ously so charming amid the din of a life of folly, and the 
coruscation of an ephemeral luxury, was now burned out 
like an exploded rocket. 

Marianne Kayser ! 


8o 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


Of all the women whom he had met, he had certainly 
loved her the most sincerely, with an absolute love, un- 
reflecting, passionate and half-mad. She was not dis- 
solute but merely turbulent, independent and impatient 
of restraint. Too poor to be married, too proud to be a 
courtesan, too rebellious to accept the humiliations of 
destiny. 

She was an orphan, and had been brought up by her 
uncle, Simon Kayser, a serious painter, indifferent to all 
that did not concern his art, — its morality, its dignity, 
its superiority — who had, under cover of his own igno- 
rance, allowed the ardent dreams of his niece and her 
wayward fits to develop freely like poisonous plants; 
near this man, in the vicious atmosphere of an old 
bachelor’s disorderly household, Marianne had lived the 
bitter life of a young woman out of her element, poor, 
but with every instinct unswervingly leaning towards the 
enjoyments of luxury. 

She had grown up amid the incongruous society of 
models and artists and, as it were, in the fumes of para- 
doxes and pipes. A little creature, she served as a play- 
thing for this painter without talent, and he allowed her 
to romp, bound and leap on the divans like a kitten. 
Moreover, the child lighted his stove and filled his pipe. 

The studio was littered with books. As chance of- 
fered, she read them all eagerly and examined with curios- 
ity the pictures drawn by an Eisen or a Moreau, depict- 
ing passionate kisses exchanged under arbors, where be- 


PART FIRST 


81 


hind curtains, short silk skirts appeared in a rumpled 
state. She had rapidly reached womanhood without 
Kayser’s perceiving that she could comprehend and 
judge for herself. 

This falsely inspired man, entirely devoted to mys- 
tical compositions, vaguely painted — philosophical and 
critical, as he said — this thinker, whose brush painted 
obscure subjects as it might have produced signs, did 
not dream that the girl growing up beside him was also 
in love with chimeras, and drawn toward the abyss, not 
however to learn the mysteries hidden by the clouds, but 
the mystery of life, the secret of the visions that haunted her, 
of the disquieting temptations that filled her with such 
feverish excitement. 

If Uncle Kayser could for one moment have descended 
from the nebulous regions, and touched the earth, he 
would have found an impatient ardor in the depth of 
Marianne’s glance, and something feverish and restless in 
her movements. But this huge, ruddy, rotund man, 
speaking above his rounded stomach, cared only for the 
morality of art, aesthetic dignity, and the necessity of 
raising the standard of art, of creating a mission for it, 
an end, an idea — art the educator , art the moralizer , — 
and allowed this feverish, wearied, impulsive creature, 
moulded by vice, who bore his name, to wander around 
his studio like a stray dog. 

Isolated, forgotten, the young girl sometimes passed 

whole days bending over a book, her lips dry, her face 
6 


82 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


pale, but with a burning light in her gray eyes, while her 
fingers were thrust through her hair, or she rested upon 
a window-sill, following afar off, some imaginary picture 
in the depths of the clouds. 

The studio overlooked a silent, gloomy street in which 
no sound was heard save the slow footfalls of weary and 
exhausted pedestrians. It was stifling behind this window 
and Marianne’s gloomy horizon was this frame of stones 
against which her wandering thoughts bruised themselves 
as a bird might break its wings. 

Ah ! to fly away, to escape from the solemn egotism 
and the theories of Simon Kayser, and to live the pas- 
sionate life of those who are free, loved, rich and happy ! 
Such was the dream upon which Marianne nourished 
herself. 

She had perpetually before her eyes, as well as before 
her life, the gray wall of that high house opposite the 
painter’s studio, pierced with its many eyes, and whether on 
summer’s stifling evenings, the shutters closed — the whole 
street being deserted, the neighbors having gone into the 
country — or in winter, with its gray sky, the roofs covered 
with the snow that was stained all too soon, when the 
brilliant lights behind the curtains looked like red spots 
on the varnished paper, Marianne ever felt in her inmost 
being the bitter void of Parisian melancholy, the over- 
whelming sadness of black loneliness, of hollow dreams, 
gnawing like incurable sorrows. 

She grew up thus, her mind and body poisoned by this 


PART FIRST 83 

dwelling which she never left except to drag her feet 
wearily through the galleries of the Louvre, leaning on the 
arm of her uncle, who invariably repeated before the same 
pictures, in the loud and bombastic tone of a comediante , 
the same opinions, and grew enthusiastic and excited 
according as the pictures of the masters agreed with his 
style, his system , his creed. One should hear him run the 
gamut of all his great phrases : My sys-tem / Marianne 
knew when the expression was coming. All these Flem- 
ish painters? Painters of snuff-boxes, without any ideal, 
without grasp ! “ And the Titian, look at this Titian ! 

Where is thought expressed in this Titian? And mo- 
ral-i-ty ? Titian ! A vendor of pink flesh ! Art should 
have a majesty, a dignity, a purity, an ideality very dif- 
ferent.” 

Ah ! these words in ty , solemn, bombastic, pedantic, 
with a false ring, they entered Marianne’s ears like burn- 
ing injections. 

These visits to the museum impressed her with a 
gloom such as a ramble in a cemetery would create, she 
returned to the house with depressing headaches and 
muttering wrathful imprecations against destiny. She 
even preferred that studio with its worn-out divans and 
its worm-eaten tapestries that were slowly shredding away. 

There, at least, she was all alone, face to face with 
herself, consumed by a cowardly fear — the fear of the 
future — this young girl who had read everything, learned 
everything, understood everything, knew everything, 


84 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

sullied by all the jokes of the Kayser studio, which, in 
spite of the exalted, sacrosanct, aesthetic discussions 
which took place therein, sometimes shockingly resembled 
a smoking-room — this physical virgin without any virgin- 
ity of mind, could there take refuge in herself, and there 
in the solitude to which she was condemned, she ques- 
tioned herself as to the end to which her present life 
would lead her. 

Of dowry she had none. Her father had left her 
nothing. Kayser was poor and in debt. She had no 
occupation. To run about giving private lessons on the 
piano, seemed to Marianne to degrade her almost to the 
level of domestic service. Those who wished to pose for 
the Montyon prize, might do so ! She never would ! 

Ah ! what sufferings ! what would be the end of such a 
life? Marriage? But who desired her? One of those 
talentless painters, who ventilated at Kayser’ s house, not 
merely their contemptuous theories, but also their down- 
at-the-heel shoes? To fall from one Bohemian condition 
to another, from exigency to want, to be the wife of one 
of these greasy-haired dreamers? Her whole nature 
shuddered in revolt at this idea. Through the open 
window, the tepid breath of nature wafted toward her 
the odor of the rising sap in gentle, warm whiffs 
that filled her with a feverish astonishment. Stretched 
on the patched divan, her eyes closed and her lovely form 
kissed by the tepid breeze, she dreamed, dreamed, 
dreamed — 


PART FIRST 


85 


The awakening was folly, a rash act, an elopement. 

In the house on Rue de Navarin there happened to 
be one fellow more daring than the rest, he was an artist 
who in the jostling daily life, kindled his love at the 
strange flame that burned in the lustful virgin’s eyes. A 
glance revealed all. 

The meeting with a rake determined the life of this 
girl. She fell, not through ignorance or curiosity, but 
moved by anger and, as it were, out of bravado. Since 
she was without social position, motherless and isolated, 
having no family, without a prop and unloved, well, she 
threw off the yoke absolutely. She broke through her 
shackles at one bound. She rebelled ! — 

She eloped with this man. 

He was a handsome fellow, who thirsted for pleasure, 
and took his prize boldly about, plunging Marianne into 
the ranks of vulgar mistresses, and had not the mad 
woman’s superior intelligence, will, and even her disgust, 
ruled at once over this first lover and the equivocal sur- 
roundings into which he had thrust her, she would have 
become a mere courtesan. 

Kayser had experienced only astonishment at the flight 
of his niece. How was it that he had never suspected 
the cause that disturbed her thoughts? “These dia- 
bolical women, nobody knows them, not even those who 
made them. A father even would not have detected 
anything. The more excuse therefore for an uncle ! ” 
So he resumed his musing on elevated art, quieting his 


86 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

displeasure — for his comrades jeered him — by the fumes 
of his pipe. 

Moreover, all things considered, the painter added, 
Marianne had followed the natural law. Full liberty for 
everybody, was still one of Simon Kayser’s pet theories. 
Marianne was of age and could dispose of her lot with- 
out the necessity of submitting to a strict endorsement 
of her conduct. When she had “ sounded all the 
depths of the abyss,” — and Kayser pronounced these 
words while puffing his tobacco — she would return. 
Uncle Kayser would always keep a place for her at what 
he called his fireside. 

“The fireside of your pipe,” Marianne once remarked 
to him. 

So Kayser consoled himself for this escapade by the 
sacredness of art, the only sacredness he recognized. 
On that indeed he yielded nothing. What mattered it 
to the world, if a girl went astray, even if that girl were 
his niece? Public morality was not hurt thereby. Ah ! 
if he, Kayser, had exhibited to the world a lewd picture, 
it would have been “ a horse of a different color ” ! The 
dignity, seriousness, purity of art, that was right enough ! 
— But a woman ! Pshaw ! a woman ! — Nor was he 
heard once to express any uneasiness as to what might 
become of Marianne. 

In the course of her perilous career, which, however, 
was not that of a courtesan, but that of a freed woman 
avenging herself, Marianne had met Guy de Lissac and 


PART FIRST 87 

loved him as completely as her nature allowed her to 
love. Guy entertained her. With him she talked over 
everything, she gave herself up to him, and made plans 
for the future. Why should they ever separate? They 
adored each other. Guy was rich, or at any rate he 
lived sumptuously. Marianne was a lovely mistress, 
clever, in fact, ten women in one. Guy became madly 
attached to her and he felt himself drawn closer to her 
day by day. She often repeated with perfect sincerity 
that she had never loved any one before. 

The first lover, then? She did not even know his 
name now ! 

There was no reason why they should not live to- 
gether for ever, a life of mutual joy and happiness, led 
by the same fancies, stirred by the same desires. Why 
ever leave each other, even once ? But it was just this 
that induced Guy to abandon this pretty girl. He was 
afraid. He saw no end to such a union as theirs. The 
little love-affair that enticed him assumed another name : 
T'he Chain. He sometimes debated with himself seri- 
ously about marrying this Marianne, whose adventures 
he knew, but who so intoxicated him that he forgot all 
the past. 

Uncle Kayser, entirely engrossed in the “ dignity of 
art,” and occupied with the composition of an allegorical 
production entitled The Modern Family , — a page of 
pure, mystic, social, regenerative art, — had certainly 
forgotten his niece, nevertheless, Lissac at times felt 


88 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

somewhat tempted to restore her to him. He was 
grieved at the thought of abandoning Marianne to an- 
other. His dread of marriage triumphed over his jeal- 
ousy. One fine day, Guy suddenly brought about a 
separation. Feeling ill, he took to his bed, when one 
morning Marianne came to him and said in passionate 
tones : 

“ Now I will never leave you again ! You are in dan- 
ger, and I am here to save you ! ” 

Guy now felt himself lost. His rapid perception, 
whose operation was as sudden as a blow of the fist, 
warned him that if he allowed this woman to install her- 
self in his house, he might say good-by to liberty, and 
probably also to his life. This Parisian had laid down 
as a principle, that a man should always be unfettered. 
He held in horror this shameful half-marriage that the 
language of slang had baptized, as with a stain : Collage. 
He therefore decided to play his life against his liberty, 
and during the temporary absence of this nurse estab- 
lished at his bedside, he packed his clothes in his trunk 
at random, shivering as he was with fever, threw him- 
self into a hack, and, with chattering teeth and a 
morbid shudder creeping over his entire body, had 
himself driven to the railroad station and departed for 
Italy. 

Marianne was heartbroken anew at this unexpected 
departure. A hope had vanished. She loved Guy very 
sincerely, and she vainly hoped that she would hold 


PART FIRST 89 

him. He fled from her ! Whither had he gone ? For 
a moment, she was tempted to rejoin him when she 
received his letters. She surmised, however, that Guy, 
desiring to avoid her, caused his brief notes to be sent 
by some friend from towns that he had left. To play 
there the absurd part of a woman chasing her lover 
would have been ridiculous. She remained, therefore, 
disgusted, heartbroken for a moment like a widow in 
despair, then she retraced her steps to the Rue de 
Navarin, and returned to the fold, where she found 
Uncle Kayser still quite unruffled, with the almost fin- 
ished picture of The Modern Family. 

“ That is, I verily believe, the best I have done, the 
most moral,” said Kayser to her. “ In art, morality 
before everything, my girl ! Come, sit down and tell 
me your little adventures.” 

It was five years — five whole years — since Lissac had 
seen Marianne. Their passion had subsided little by 
little into friendship, — expressed though by letters. 
Marianne wrote, Guy replied. All the bitter reproofs 
had been exchanged through the post, yet, in spite of 
this correspondence, neither had sought the opportunity 
nor felt the desire to meet. The fancy was dead ! 
Nevertheless, they had loved each other well ! 

Suddenly, without overtures, on this bitingly cold 
morning, Marianne arrived, half shivering, in the new 
apartment, warmed her tiny feet at the fire and raised to 
him the rosy tip of her cold nose. 


9o 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


Guy was somewhat surprised. 

He looked with a curiosity, not unmixed with pain, at 
that woman whom he had loved truly enough to suf- 
fer love’s pangs, — the innocents say to die of it. He 
tried to find again in the depths of those gray eyes, 
sparkling and malicious, the old burning passion, ex- 
tinguished without leaving even a fragment of its 
embers. To think that he had risked his life for that 
woman; that he should have sacrificed his name; that 
he should have torn himself from her with such harsh 
bravado; that he should have cut deep into his own 
being in order to leave her; that he had fled, leaving 
for Italy with a craving desire for solitude and forgetful- 
ness ! Eh ! yes, Marianne had been his true love, the 
true love of this blas£ Parisian sceptic and braggart, and 
he sought, while again looking at the lovely girl, to re- 
cover some of the sensations that had flown, to recall 
some of those reminiscences which more than once had 
agreeably affected him. 

Marianne evidently understood what was passing in 
Guy’s mind. She smiled strangely. Buried in the 
armchair, whose back supported her own, and half- 
bending her fair neck that was supported by the lace 
head-rest, she looked at Lissac fixedly with an odd 
expression, the sidelong glance of a woman that seems 
to be her keenest scrutiny. 

Through her half-closed lashes he seemed to feel that 
a malicious glance embraced him. The mobile nostrils 


PART FIRST 


9 1 

of her delicate nose dilated with a nervous trembling 
that intensified the mocking smile betrayed by her curl- 
ing lips. Her hands were resting upon her plump arms, 
and with a trembling motion of the fingers beat a fever- 
ish little march as if she were playing a scale on a key- 
board. 

Guy sought to evoke from the well-set, gracefully 
reclining form, from the half-sly and half-concealed 
glance, from the palpitating nostrils, something that 
reminded him of his former ecstasies. Again he saw, 
shadowed by the chin, that part of her neck where he 
loved to bury his brow and to rest his lips, greedily, 
lingeringly, as when one sips a liqueur. A strange 
emotion seized him. All that had not yet been grati- 
fied of his shattered, but not wholly destroyed love, 
surged within him. 

Were it fancy or reminiscence, beside this woman he 
still felt as of old, a feeling that oppressed his heart and 
caused him that delightful sensation of uneasiness to 
which he had been a stranger in connection with his 
many later easy love adventures. A light, penetrating 
and sweet odor floated around Marianne, reminding 
Lissac of the intoxicating perfume of vanished days, an 
irritating odor as of new-mown hay. 

He said nothing, while she awaited his remarks with 
curiosity. Guy’s mute interrogation possibly embar- 
rassed her, for she suddenly shook her head and rose to 
her feet. 


92 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ May one smoke here ? ” she said, as she opened a 
Russia leather cigarette-case bearing her monogram. 

“What next?” said Guy, lighting a sponge steeped 
in alcohol that stood in a silver holder and offering it to 
Marianne. 

She quickly closed her fine teeth on the end of the 
paper cigarette that she had rolled between her fingers 
and lighted it at the flame. The gleam of the alcohol 
brightened her eyes and slightly flushed her pale cheeks, 
which Guy regarded with strange feelings. 

“ Your invention is an odd one ! ” she said, as she 
returned him the little sponge upon which a tongue of 
blue flame played. 

He extinguished it, and abandoning himself to the 
disturbing charm of reminiscences, watched Marianne 
who was already half- enveloped in a light cloud of 
smoke. 

“There is one thing you do not know,” he said. 
“ More than once — on my honor — at the corner of the 
street, at some chance meeting, my old Parisian heart 
has beaten wildly on seeing in some coquettish outline, or 
in some fair hair falling loosely over an otter-skin cloak, 
or in some fair, vanishing profile with a pearl set in the lobe 
of the ear, something that resembled you. Those fur 
toques with little feathers that everybody wears now, you 
wore before any one else, on your fair head. Whenever 
I see one, I follow it. On my word, though, not for her. 
The fair unknown trotted before me, making the side- 


PART FIRST 


93 

walks echo to the touch of the high heels of her little 
shoes, while I continued to follow her under the sweet 
illusion that she would lead me at the end of the journey 
to a spot where it seemed to me a little of paradise had 
been scattered. It is thus that phantoms of loved ones 
course through the streets of Paris in broad daylight, and 
I am not the only one, Marianne, who has felt the an- 
guish and heart-fluttering that I have experienced. 
Often have I found my eyes moist after such an expe- 
rience ; but if it were winter, I attributed my tears sim- 
ply to a cold. Tell me, Marianne, was it really the 
cold that moistened my eyes?” 

Marianne laughed. 

“ Come, but you are idyllic, my dear Guy,” said she, 
looking at Lissac. 

“ Melancholy, nothing more.” 

“ Let us say elegiac. Those little fits have come upon 
you rather late in the day, have they not? A little 
valerian and quinine, made up into silver-coated pills, is 
a sovereign remedy.” 

“ You are making fun of me.” 

“ No,” she said. “ But it was so easy then, seeing 
that the recollection of me could inspire you with so 
many poetic ideas and cause you to trot along for such 
a distance behind plumed toques — it was so easy not to 
take the train for Milan and not to fly away from me as 
one skips from a creditor.” 

Guy could not refrain from smiling. 


94 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ Ah ! it is because — I loved you too dearly ! ” 

“ I know that ! ” exclaimed Marianne with a tone, in 
contrast with her elegance, of an artist’s model giving a 
pupil a retort. “ A madrigal that has not answered, no ; 
does it rain? ” 

“ I have perhaps been stupid, how can it be helped? ” 
said Lissac. 

“ Do not doubt it, my dear friend. It is always stupid 
to deprive one’s self of the woman who adores one. 
Such rarities are not common.” 

“You remember, dear Marianne,” said Guy, “the day 
when you boldly wrote upon the photographs to some 
one who loved you dearly : ‘ To him I love more than 
every one else in the world? ’ ” 

“Yes,” said Marianne, blowing a cloud of smoke up- 
ward. “Such things as that are never forgotten when 
one writes them with the least sincerity.” 

“And you were sincere? ” 

“ On the faith of an honest man,” she answered laugh- 
ingly. 

“And yet I have been assured since that time, that 
you adored another before that one.” 

“It is possible,” said Marianne with sudden bitter- 
ness; “but, in the life that I have led, I have been 
so often purchased that I have been more than once 
able to mistake for love the pleasure that I have 
derived.” 

In those words, uttered sharply, and in a hissing tone 


PART FIRST 


95 

like the stroke of a whip-lash in the air, she had ex- 
pressed so much suffering and hidden anger that Lissac 
was strangely affected. 

Guy, the Parisian, experienced a sentiment altogether 
curious and unexpected, and this woman whose bare 
neck was resting on the back of the armchair, allowing 
the smoke that issued from her lips in puffs to enter her 
quivering nostrils, seemed to him a new creature, a 
stranger who had come there to tempt him. In her 
languishing and, as it were, abandoned pose, he followed 
the outline of her graceful body, blooming in its youth, 
the fulness of her bust, the lines of her skirt closely cling- 
ing to her exquisite hips, and the unlooked-for return of 
the lost mistress, the forgotten one, assumed in his eyes 
the relish of a caprice and an adventure. And then, 
that bitter remark, spoken in the course of their light 
Parisian gossip, whetted his curiosity still further and 
awoke, perhaps, all the latent force of a passion formerly 
suddenly severed. 

He was seated on an ottoman beside Marianne, gazing 
into the young woman’s clear eyes, his hand endeavoring 
to seize a white hand that nimbly eluded his grasp. The 
movement of his hands suggested the embrace that his 
feelings prompted. 

Marianne suddenly looked him full in the face and 
curtly said, in a tone of raillery, that suggested a past 
that refused to reopen an account for the future : 

“ Oh ! oh ! but is that making love, my friend ? ” 


96 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

Lissac smiled. 

“ Come,” she said, “ nonsense ! That is a romance 
whose pages you have already often turned over.” 

“The romance of my life,” whispered Lissac in Ma- 
rianne’s ear. 

“ The more reason that it should not be read again. 
It is true there are books one never reads but once. And 
for that reason, probably, one never forgets them.” 

She rose abruptly, threw the stump of her cigarette 
into the fire and looked with a bright, penetrating glance, 
into Lissac’s surprised eyes. 

“ Ah ! it is a long while, you see, since you spoke 
laughingly — we have both heartily laughed at it — of the 
( caprices of Marianne.’ Do you know what I am, my dear 
Guy? Yes, where is the mad creature who was formerly 
your mistress ? Abandoned to dark, profound and incur- 
able ennui, I yawn my life away, as some one said, I 
yawn it away even to the point of dislocating my jaw. 
The days seem dull to me, people stupid, books insipid, 
while fools seem idiots and witty people fools. It is to 
have the blues, if you will, or rather to have the grays, 
to hate colorless objects, to be weary of the common- 
place, to thirst for the impossible. A thirst that cannot 
be allayed, let me add. The pure, fresh spring that 
should slake my thirst has not yet gushed.” 

She talked in a dry, bitter tone, with a smile that fre- 
quently gave way to slight outbreaks of convulsive laughter 
almost as if she were attacked with a fit of coughing. 


PART FIRST 


97 

From time to time, she blew away a cloud of smoke that 
escaped from her lips, for she had resumed her cigarette, 
or with the tip of her nail, struck her papelito, knock- 
ing the ashes on the carpet. 

Moved and greatly puzzled, but no longer thinking of 
the temptation of a moment before, Guy looked at her 
and nodded his head gravely, like a physician who finds 
a patient’s illness more serious than the latter is willing 
to acknowledge. 

“You are very unhappy, Marianne ! ” he remarked. 

“I? Nonsense! Weary, disgusted, bored, yes ; but 
not unhappy. There is still something great in misery. 
That can be battled against. It is like thunder. But 
the rain, the eternal rain, incessantly falling, with its 
liquid mud, that — ah ! that, ugh ! that is crushing. 
And in my life it rains, it rains with terrible con- 
stancy.” 

As she uttered these words, she stretched her arms out 
with a movement that expressed boundless weariness 
and disclosed to Guy the dull dejection that followed a 
great deception and a hopeless fall. 

“Life? My life? A mere millstone mechanically 
revolving. A perpetual round of joyless love-episodes 
and intoxication without thirst. Do you understand? 
The life of a courtesan endured by a true woman. My 
soul is mine, my spirit and my intellect, but these are 
chained to a body that I abandon to others— whom I 
have abandoned, thank God ! for I am satiated at length 
7 


98 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

and have now no lover, nor do I desire one. I desire 
to be my own mistress, in short, and not the mistress of 
any person. I have but one desire, hear — ” 

“What?” asked Guy, who was deeply moved by this 
outburst of anger and suffering, this cry of pain that de- 
clared itself involuntarily, his feelings vacillating between 
doubt and pity. 

“ My pleasure,” Marianne replied, “ is to shut myself 
up alone in a little room that I have rented at the end 
of an unfrequented lane near the Jardin des Plantes, 
whither I have had transported all the wreckage saved 
from my past life : books, knickknacks, portraits, and I 
know not what. My intention is that I shall remain 
there unknown to all, my name, whence I come, where 
I go, my thoughts, my hatred, my past loves, everything, 
in fact, a secret. I shall cloister myself. I shall stretch 
myself out on a reclining-chair and think that if, by 
chance, — as happens sometimes — an aneurism, a con- 
gestion, or I don’t know what, should strike me down in 
that solitude, no one would know who I am, nobody, 
nobody, and my body would be taken to the Morgue, or 
to the grave, it matters little to me, that body of which 
the little otter-trimmed toques recall to you the grace- 
ful, serpentine line. Ah ! those plans are not very lively, 
are they? Well, my dear, such are my good moments. 
Judge of the others, then.” 

Lissac was profoundly stirred and very greatly puzzled. 
To call on him : that implied a need of him. But there 


PART FIRST 


99 

was no attempt to find the marker at the place where 
the romance had been interrupted : therefore the visit 
was not to renew the relations that had been severed, 
yet not broken. 

What, then, brought this creature, still charming and 
giddy, whose heart was gnawed and wrung with grief? 
And was she the woman — Guy knew her so well ! — to 
return thus, only to conjure up the vanished recollect 
tions, to communicate the secret of her present sorrows 
and to permit Lissac to inhale the odor of a departed 
perfume, more airy than the blue smoke-wreaths that 
escaped from her cigarette ? 

After entrusting Guy with the secret of her yearning 
for solitude, she again indulged in her sickly smile, and 
still looking at Guy : 

“You are, 1 am told, a constant guest at Sabine 
Marsy’s receptions?” she said abruptly. 

“Yes,” replied Lissac. “But I have no great liking 
for political salons.” 

“ It is a political centre, and yet not, seemingly. It 
is about to become a scientific one, if one may believe 
the reporters — Monsieur de Rosas is announced. — 
By 'the way, my dear Guy, you still see Monsieur de 
Rosas ! ” 

While Marianne uttered this name with an indifferent 
tone, she slightly bent her head in order to scrutinize 
Guy. 

He did not reply at once, seeking first to discover 


Q 4 


100 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


what object Marianne had in speaking to him about De 
Rosas. In a vague way he surmised that the great 
Castilian noble counted for something in Marianne’s 
visit. 

“ I always see him when he is in Paris,” he said after 
a moment’s pause. 

“ Then you will see him very soon, for he will arrive 
to-morrow.” 

“ Who told you that ? ” 

“The newspapers. You don’t read the newspapers, 
then? — He is returning from the East. Madame Marsy 
is bent on his narrating his travels, on the occasion of a 
special soiree. A lecture ! Our Rosas must have al- 
tered immensely. He was wild enough of old.” 

“A shy fellow, which is quite different. But,” asked 
Lissac after a moment, “what about Rosas? ” 

“ Tell me, in the first place, that you know perfectly 
well that he will arrive to-morrow.” 

“ I know it through the reporters, as you say. To- 
day, it is through the reporters that one learns news of 
one’s friends.” 

“ The important fact is that you know him, and it is 
because I am particularly anxious to hear Monsieur de 
Rosas that I come to ask you to present me at Madame 
Marsy’s.” 

“ Oh ! that is it ? ” Guy began. 

“Yes, that is it. I am weary. I am crazy over the 
Orient. You remember F£licien David’s Desert that I 


PART FIRST 


IOI 


used to play for you on the piano ? I would like to 
hear this story of travel. It would make me forget 
Paris.” 

“ You shall hear it, my dear Marianne. Madame 
Marsy asked me to introduce Vaudrey to her the other 
evening. You ask me to present you to Madame 
Marsy. I am both crimp and introducer ; but I am de- 
lighted to introduce you to a salon that you will, I trust, 
find less gloomy than your little room of the Jardin des 
Plantes. In fact, I thought you were one of Sabine 
Marsy’s friends. Did I dream so ? ” 

“ I have occasionally met her, and have found her 
very agreeable. She invited me to call on her, but I 
have not dared — my hunger for solitude — my den 
yonder — ” 

“ Is the little room forbidden ground, is one abso- 
lutely prohibited from seeing it ? ” said Guy with a 
smile. 

“ It is not forbidden, but it is difficult. Moreover, I 
have nothing hidden from my friends,” said Marianne, 
“ on one condition, which is, that they are my friends — ” 

She emphasized the words : “ Nothing but my 
friends.” 

“ Friendship,” said Guy, “ is all very well, it is very 
good, very agreeable, but — ” 

“ But— ? ” 

“ Love — ” 

“ Do not mention that to me ! That takes wings, 


102 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


b-r-r ! Like swallows. It flits. It leaves for Italy. 
But friendship — ” 

She extended her small firm hand as rigid as steel. 

“ When you desire to visit me over there, I shall be at 
home. I will give you the address. But it is not Guy 
who will come, but Monsieur de Lissac, remember. Is 
that understood ? ” 

“ I should be very silly if I answered yes,** 

Marianne shrugged her shoulders. 

“ Compliments ! How foolish you are ! Keep that 
sort of talk for others. It is a long time since they 
were addressed to me.” 

She took that man’s face between her hands and 
kissed his cheeks in a frank, friendly way. Guy became 
somewhat pale. 

“ I have loved you, and truly, that is enough. Do 
not complain or ask aught besides.” 

Ah ! what an eager desire now prompted him to pos- 
sess her again, to find in her his mistress once more, to 
restrain her from leaving until she had become his, as of 
old. 

She had already thrown her cloak over her shoulders, 
and said, as she gently pushed open the door : 

“ So it is agreed ? I am to go to Madame 
Marsy’s ? ” 

“To Madame Marsy’s. I will have an invitation 
sent you.” 

“ And I will call for you and take you. Yes, I, here, 


PART FIRST 


103 

like a jolly companion. Or I’ll go with my uncle. You 
will present me to Rosas. We shall see if he recognizes 
me.” 

She burst out laughing. “ You will also introduce me 
— since that is your occupation — ” and here her smile 
disclosed her pretty, almost mischievous-looking teeth — 
“ to Monsieur Vaudrey, your comrade. A minister ! 
Such people are always useful for something. Addio, 
caro ! ’ ’ 

Guy de Lissac had hardly taken two steps toward 
Marianne before she had vanished behind the heavy 
folds of the Japanese portiere that fell in its place be- 
hind her. He opened the door. Mademoiselle Kayser 
was already in the hall, with her hand on the handle of 
the door. 

“At nine o’clock I shall be with you,” she said to 
Lissac as she disappeared. 

She waved a salutation, the valet de chambre has- 
tened to open the door, and her outline, that for a 
moment stood out in the light of the staircase, van- 
ished. Guy was almost angry, and returned to his room. 

Now that she had left, he opened his window quickly. 
It seemed to him that a little blue smoke escaped from 
the room, the cloud emitted by Marianne’s cigarette. 
And with this bluish vapor also disappeared the odor of 
new-mown hay, bearing with it the passing intoxication 
that for a moment threatened to ensnare this disabused 


man. 


104 his excellency the minister 

The cold outside air, the bright sunshine, entered in 
quivering rays. Without, the snow-covered roofs stood 
out clearly against a soft blue sky, limpid and springlike. 
Light wreaths of smoke floated upward in the bracing 
atmosphere. 

Guy freely inhaled this buoyant atmosphere that 
chased away the blended odor of tobacco and that ex- 
haled from the woman. It seemed to him that a sort 
of band had been torn from his brow which, but a 
moment ago, felt compressed. The fresh breeze bore 
away all trace of Marianne’s kisses. 

“ Must I always be a child ? ” he thought. “ It is 
not on my account that she came here, but on Rosas’s. 
Our friends’ friends are our lovers. Egad ! on my 
word, I was almost taken in again, nevertheless ! Com- 
pelled, in order to cut adrift again, to make another 
journey to Italy, — at my age.” 

Then, feeling chilly, he closed the window, laughing 
as he did so. 


v 


On the pavement of the Boulevard Malesherbes, two 
policemen, wrapped in their hooded coats, restrained the 
crowd that gathered in front of the huge double-door of 
the house occupied by Madame Marsy. A double row 
of curious idlers stood motionless, braving benumbed 


PART FIRST 105 

fingers while watching the carriages that rolled under the 
archway, which, after quickly depositing at the foot of the 
brilliantly lighted perron, women enveloped in burnooses 
and men in white gloves, their faces half- hidden by fur 
collars, turned and crossed the row of approaching 
coupes. 

For an hour past there had been a double file of 
carriages, and a continuous stream of guests arriving 
on foot, who threw their cigars at the foot of the perron, 
chatting as they ascended the steps, which were pro- 
tected by a covering of glass. The curious pointed out 
the faces of well-known persons. It was said in the 
neighborhood that the greater part of the ministers had 
accepted invitations. 

Madame Marsy’s salons were brilliant under the blaz- 
ing lights. Guests jostled each other in the lobbies. 
Overcoats and mantles were thrown in heaps or strung 
up in haste, the gloved hands reaching out as in the 
lobby of a theatre to receive the piece of numbered 
pasteboard. 

“You have No. 113,” said Monsieur de Lissac to 
Marianne, who had just entered, wearing a pale blue 
cloak, and leaning on his arm. 

She smiled as she slipped the tiny card into her 
pocket. 

“ Oh ! I am not superstitious !” 

She beamed with satisfaction. 

People in the hall stood aside in order to allow this 


106 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

pretty creature to pass by ; her fair hair fell over her 
plump, though slender, white shoulders, and the folds of 
her satin skirt, falling over her magnificent hips, rustled 
as she walked. 

Lissac, with his eyeglass fixed, and ceremoniously car- 
rying his flattened opera-hat, advanced toward the salon, 
amid the greedy curiosity of the guests who contem- 
plated the exquisite grace of the lovely girl as if they 
were inhaling its charm. 

Madame Marsy stood at the entrance of the salon, 
looking attractive in a toilet of black silk which height- 
ened her fair beauty, and, with extended hands, smilingly 
greeted all her guests, while the charming Madame 
Gerson, refined and. tactful, aided her in receiving. 

Sabine appeared perfectly charmed on perceiving Ma- 
rianne. She had felt the influence formerly of this ready, 
keen and daring intelligence. She troubled herself but 
little about Marianne’s past. Kayser’s niece was re- 
ceived everywhere, and had not Kayser decided to ac- 
company her? He followed in the rear of the young 
girl. People had not observed him. He chatted with a 
man about sixty years old, with a white beard and very 
gentle eyes who listened to him good-naturedly while 
thinking perhaps of something else. 

“ Ah ! my old Ram el, how glad I am to see you ! ” he 
said with theatrical effusion. 

“ It is a fact that we rarely see each other. What has 
become of you, Kayser? ” 


PART FIRST 


107 

“ I ? I work. I protest, you know, I have never 
compromised — Never — The dignity of art — ” 

Their voices were drowned by the hubbub of the first 
salon, already filled with guests ; Sabine meanwhile took 
Marianne, whom Lissac surrendered, and led her toward 
a larger salon with red decorations, wherein the chairs 
were drawn up in lines before an empty space, forming, 
thanks to the voluminous folds of the curtains, a sort of 
stage on which, doubtless, some looked-for actor was 
about to appear. 

Nearly all these chairs were already occupied. The 
lovely faces of the women were illuminated by the daz- 
zling light. Everybody turned toward Marianne as she 
entered the room, under the guidance of Sabine, who led 
her quickly toward one of the unoccupied seats, close to the 
improvised stage on which, evidently, Monsieur de Rosas 
was going to speak. 

Madame Gerson had taken her seat near Marianne 
who searched her black, bright eyes with a penetrating 
glance in order to interrogate the thoughts of this friend 
of the family. Madame Gerson was delighted. Sabine, 
dear Sabine, had achieved a success, yes, a success ! 
Monsieur Vaudrey was there ! And Madame Vaudrey, 
too ! And Monsieur Collard — of Nantes — the President 
of the Council ! And Monsieur Pichereau, who, after 
all, had been a minister ! 

“ 1'hat makes almost three ministers, one of whom is 
President of the Council ! Sabine is overcome with joy, 


io8 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

yes, absolutely crazy ! Think of it : Madame Hertzfield, 
Sabine’s rival, never had more than two ministers at a 
time in her salon.” 

She added, prattling in soft, linnet-like tones, that 
Madame Hertzfield’s salon was losing its prestige. Only 
sub-prefects were created there. But Sabine’s salon was 
the antechamber to the prefectures ! 

“ And if you knew how charming Monsieur Vaudrey 
is — a delightful conversationalist — he has dined ex- 
cellently — he was twice served with an entree ! ” 

Marianne listened, but her mind was wandering far 
away. She was debating with herself as to when Mon- 
sieur de Rosas would appear on that narrow strip of 
waxed floor before her. 

Guy had correctly surmised : it was Rosas and 
Rosas only whom this woman was seeking in Sabine’s 
salon. She wished to see him again, to talk to him, 
to tempt destiny. A fancy. — A final caprice. Why 
not? 

Marianne thought that she played a leading part 
there. She remembered this Jos6 very well, having 
met him more than once in former days with Guy. A 
Parisian Castilian, more Parisian than Spanish, he spoke 
with exquisite finish the classic tongue, and with the 
free-and-easy manner of a frequenter of the boulevards, 
chatted in the slang of the pavement or of the green- 
room ; he was an eminent virtuoso and collector, an 
author when the desire seized him, but only in his own 


PART FIRST 


109 

interest, liberal in his opinions, lavish in his disposition, 
attractive in his manners ; an eager traveller, he had, at 
thirty years of age, seen all that was to be seen, he had 
visited India and Japan, drunk camel’s milk under the 
tents of the Kirgheez, and eaten dates with the Kabyles, 
and narrated with a sort of appetizing irony, love ad- 
ventures which might have seemed romantic brag, if it 
were not that he lessened their improbability by his 
raillery. He was a kind of belated Byron, who might 
have been cured of his romantic tastes by the wounds 
and contact of reality. 

She especially recalled a visit in Guy’s company to 
Jos£ at an apartment that the duke had furnished in 
Rue de Laval. He occupied a painter’s large studio, 
draping it with Oriental tapestry, crowding it with knick- 
knacks and panoplies of weapons : an extravagant lux- 
ury, — something like the embarrassment of riches in a 
plundered caravansary. It was there that Jos£ had re- 
galed Marianne and Guy with coffee served in Turkish 
fashion, and while they chatted, they had smoked that 
pale Oriental tobacco, that the Spaniard, quoting some 
Persian poets, gallantly compared to the perfumed locks 
of Mademoiselle Kayser. 

During her years of hardship, she had many a time 
recalled that auburn-haired, handsome fellow, with his 
blue eye, pensive and searching, and lower lip curled 
disdainfully over his tawny beard trimmed in Charles V. 
style, as he reclined there, stretched on Hindoo rugs, 


I IO 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


chanting some monotonous song as slow as the move- 
ment of a caravan. 

“ Isn’t my friend Rosas a delightful fellow? ” Guy had 
asked her. 

“ Delightful ! ” 

“ And clever ! and learned ! and entertaining ! and, 
what is not amiss, a multi-millionaire ! ” 

Marianne thought of the absolute power, satisfied 
desires, whims and possible dreams that were linked 
with that man. He was a mass of perambulating gold. 
How many times she had dreamed, in the mists of her 
recollection, of that somewhat haughty smile that curled 
his delicate mustache, and those keen-edged teeth 
gleaming though his reddish beard, as if greedy to bury 
themselves deep in flesh. 

But where was the duke now? Among the Kabyles 
or the Mormons? At Tahiti, Greenland, or gone to the 
devil? The papers had once announced that he was 
organizing an expedition to the North Pole. Perhaps 
he was lost among the icebergs in the Arctic Seas ! She 
smiled at that, sighing involuntarily with sincere emotion, 
but prompted by selfish regret. 

It had seemed to her that Jos£ had more than once 
permitted himself to express his affection for her. 
Politely, correctly, of course, as a gallant man addresses 
a friend’s mistress, but manifesting in his reserve a host 
of understood sentiments and tender restraint that sug- 
gested hidden or implied declarations. Marianne had 


PART FIRST 


m 


pretended not to understand him. At that time, she 
loved Guy or thought that she loved him, which amounts 
to the same thing. She contented herself with smiling 
at the flirtation of Monsieur de Rosas. 

“ I have perhaps been very stupid,” she said to her- 
self. “ Pshaw ! he might have been as silly as I, if oc- 
casion demanded. The obligations of friendship ! The 
phantom of Guy ! ” 

She suddenly stopped and this name escaped her lips : 
Jose — Joseph ! 

Nevertheless, this was one of the vexations of this 
girl : she was angry because she had acted rightly. 
Others suffer remorse for their ill deeds, but she suffered 
for her virtue. She often thought of the Due de Rosas, 
as her mother Eve must have thought of Paradise Lost. 
She would have stirred, astonished, conquered, crushed 
Paris, if she had been the mistress of Rosas. 

“What then! Whose fault was it? How foolish of 
one not to dare everything ! ” 

Now see how suddenly and unexpectedly, just as an 
adversary might offer an opportunity for revenge, chance, 
at the turning-point of her life, had brought back to 
Paris this Jos6 whom she had never forgotten, and who 
perhaps remembered her, and by whom she would be 
recognized most assuredly, in any case. It was an un- 
hoped, unlooked-for opportunity that restored Marianne’s 
faith in herself, superstitious as she was, like all success- 
ful gamblers. 


1 1 2 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


She had fallen, but how she could raise herself by the 
arms of the duke ! One must be determined. 

Guy and Sabine were met on the way, like two helpers. 
She profited by this circumstance, using the one to reach 
the other and to gain Rosas from the latter. She bore 
a grudge, nevertheless, against Guy de Lissac, the in- 
solent and silly fellow who had formerly left her. Bah ! 
before taking vengeance on him, it was most important 
to make use of him, and, after all, revenge is so weari- 
some and useless. 

Now Kayser’s niece, Guy’s mistress, a woman who 
had given herself or who had been taken, who had sold 
herself or who had been purchased, a young girl who 
remained so in features, gracefulness and the virgin 
charms that clothed her courtesan’s body- — her smile a 
virgin’s, her glance full of frolic — Marianne was now 
within a few feet of him whom she expected, wishing 
for him as a seducer desires a woman. 

“ If he has loved me one moment, one single moment, 
Rosas will love me,” she thought. 

The salon was stiflingly hot, but Marianne was deter- 
mined to keep herself in the first row, to be directly 
under the eye of the duke. 

She felt the waves of over-heated air rise to her tem- 
ples, and at times she feared that she would faint, half- 
stifled as she was and unaccustomed now to attend 
soirees. She remained, however, looking anxiously to- 
ward the door, watching for the appearance of the trav- 


PART FIRST 


1 13 

eller and wondering when the pale face of the Spaniard 
would show itself. 

At a short distance from her there was a young 
woman of twenty-three or twenty-four, courted like a 
queen and somewhat confused by the many questions 
addressed to her ; robed in a white gown, she was ex- 
tremely pretty, fair, and wore natural roses in her ash- 
colored hair, her eyes had a wondering expression, her 
cheeks were flushed, and in her amiable, gracious man- 
ner, she disclosed a touch of provincialism, modesty and 
hesitation — Marianne heard Madame Gerson say to her 
neighbors : 

“ It is the minister’s wife.” 

“ Madame Vaudrey? ” 

“ Yes ! Very charming, isn’t she? ” 

“ Ravishingly pretty ! Fresh-looking ! ” 

Then in lowered tone ; 

“ Too fresh ! ” 

“ Rather provincial ! ” 

And one voice replied, in an ironical, apologetic tone : 

Bless me, my dear, nothing dashing ! Hair and 
complexion peculiarly her own ! So much the better.” 

Notwithstanding the low tone of this conversation, 
Marianne heard it all. One by one, every one looked 
at this young woman who borrowed her golden tints 
from the rising sun. She bore the popular name of the 
new minister. She entered into prominence with him, 

accepting gracefully and unaffectedly the weight of his 
8 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


114 

fame. Her timid, almost restless, uncertain smile, 
seemed to crave from the other women pardon for her 
own success, and there, surrounded by a group of men 
seated near the window, were two persons for whom 
chairs had just been placed, one of whom was a young, 
happy man, who exhaled an atmosphere of joy, and 
looked from time to time toward Adrienne and Marianne 
as if to see if the young wife were annoyed. 

“ Where is Monsieur Vaudrey then ? ” Marianne asked 
Madame Gerson. 

“ Why, he is just opposite to you ! There on your 
right, beside Monsieur Collard, and he is devouring you 
with his glances.” 

“ Ah, bah ! ” said Marianne with an indifferent smile. 

And she looked in her turn. 

She had, in fact, already noticed this very elegant man 
who had been watching her for some time. 

But how could she know that he was Monsieur Vaudrey? 
He was delightful, moreover, sprightly in manner and of 
keen intelligence. A few moments before, she had heard 
him, as she passed by him under Sabine’s guidance, utter 
some flattering remarks which had charmed her and made 
her smile. 

Ah! that was Vaudrey? 

She had often heard him spoken of. She had read of 
his speeches. She had even frequently seen his photo- 
graph in the stationers’ windows. 

The determined air of this young man, whom she knew 


PART FIRST 


XI S 

to be eloquent, had pleased her. She ought then to have 
recognized him. He was exactly as his photographs rep- 
resented him. 

Of all the glances bestowed on the minister, Marianne’s 
especially attracted Sulpice. A moment previously he 
had felt a singular charm at the appearance of this woman, 
threading her way directly between the rows of men 
by whom she was so crowded as to be in danger of hav- 
ing her garments pulled from her body. In his love of 
definitions and analyses, Vaudrey had never pictured 
the Parisian woman otherwise, with her piquant and in- 
stantaneous seductiveness, as penetrating as a subtle 
essence. 

Marianne, smiling restlessly, looked at him and allowed 
him to look at her. 

Her cheeks, which were extremely pale, suddenly be- 
came flushed as if their color were heightened by some 
feverish attack, when, amid the stir caused by the curios- 
ity of the guests, and a greeting manifested by the shuf- 
fling of feet and the murmuring of voices, Monsieur de 
Rosas appeared ; his air was somewhat . embarrassed, he 
offered his arm to Madame Marsy, who conducted him 
to the narrow stage as if to present him. 

“ At last ! ah ! it is he ! ” 

“ It is really the Due de Rosas, is it not? ” 

“ Yes, yes, it is he ! ” 

“ He is charming ! ” 

The name of Rosas, although only repeated in an under- 


n6 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

tone by the lips of these women, rung in Marianne’s 
ears, sounding like a quickstep played on a clarion. It 
seemed to her that a decisive moment in her life was 
announced fantastically in those utterances. Even now, 
while burning with the very fever of her eagerness, she 
felt the gambler’s superstition. As soon as she saw Jos£, 
she said to herself at once that if he saw her and recog- 
nized her first glance, then he had not forgotten her and 
she could hope for everything. Everything ! “ Men 

happily forget less quickly than women,” she thought. 
“ Through egotism, or from regret, some abandon them- 
selves to their reminiscences with complacency, like this 
Guy, and recognize on our countenances the lines of their 
own youth. Others, perhaps, mourn over the lost oppor- 
tunity, and the duke is sentimental enough to be of that 
class.” 

She thought that Rosas must look at her, yes, at any 
cost ; and with body inclined, her chin resting on her 
gloved right hand, while the other handled her fan with 
the skill peculiar to the Spanish women, she darted at the 
duke a rapid glance, a glance burning with desire and in 
which she expressed her whole will. The human eye has 
within it all the power of attraction possessed by a magnetic 
needle. As if he had experienced the actual effect of 
that glance fixed on his countenance, the duke raised his 
head after a polite but somewhat curtly elegant bow, to 
look at the audience of lovely women whom Sabine had 
gathered to greet him, and, as if only Marianne had been 


PART FIRST 


XI 7 

present, he at once saw the motionless young woman silent- 
ly contemplating him. 

Rosas, as. he appeared within the frame formed by the 
red curtains, his thin, regular and ruddy face looking pale 
against the white of his cravat and the bosom of his shirt, 
looked like a portrait of a Castilian of the time of Philip II., 
clothed in modern costume, his fashionable black clothes 
relieved only by a touch of vermilion, a red rosette. 
But however fashionable the cut of his clothes might be, on 
this man with the vague blue eyes, and looking contem- 
plative and sad with his upturned moustache, the black 
coat assumed the appearance of a doublet of old, on 
which the red ribbon of the Legion of Honor looked like 
a diminutive cross of Calatrava upon a velvet cloak. 

In fixing, to some extent, his wandering glance on the 
fervent look of Marianne, this melancholy Spanish face 
was instinctively lighted up with a fleeting smile that im- 
mediately passed and was followed by a slight, respectful 
bow, quite sufficient, however, to surround the young 
woman with an atmosphere that seemed to glow. 

“ He has recognized me ! at once ! come ! — I am not 
forgotten.” 

As in the glorious moment of victory, her bloodless 
face was overspread with a dazzling expression of joy. 
Boldly raising her head and inviting his glances as she 
had braved them, she listened with glowing eyes, drink- 
ing each word that flowed from his lips, her nostrils dis- 
tended as if to scent the approach of an Oriental perfume, 


n8 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

to the recital of the narrative commenced by the duke 
in a measured, cajoling tone, which grew animated and 
louder. 

Everybody listened to Rosas. Only the slight flutter- 
ing of fans was heard like a beating of wings. Without 
changing the tone of his discourse, and recounting his 
travels to his audience as if he were addressing only Ma- 
rianne, he told in a voice more Italian than Spanish, in 
musical, non-guttural cadences, of his experiences on the 
borders of the Nile, of the weariness of the caravans, of 
the nights passed under star-strewn skies, of the songs of 
the camel-driver, slowly intoned like prayers, of the 
gloom of solitary wastes and of the poetic associations of 
the ruins slumbering amid the red sands of the desert. 
At times he recited a translation of an Arabian song or 
remarked in passing, on some mournful ballad, refined 
as a sonnet, deep as the infinite, in which the eternal 
words of love, tender and affecting in all languages, 
assumed an intensely poetic character under the in- 
fluence of their Semitic nature ; songs in which passers- 
by, strangers, lovers dead for centuries who had strewed, 
as it were, their joys and their sobs over the sands of the 
desert, told the color of the hair and of the eyes of their 
dear ones, and pleaded with their betrothed dead for the 
alms of love, and promised to spectres of women, rose- 
colored garments and flowers that time would never 
wither. 

These songs of Arabs dying for Nazarenes, of sons of 


PART FIRST 


n 9 

Mohammed sacrificing themselves for the daughters of 
Aissa were so translated by this Castilian that the 
exquisite charm of the original, filtered through his 
rendering, lost none, — even in French, — of the special 
characteristics of his own nation, a half-daughter of 
the Orient. And inevitably, with its melancholy rep- 
etition, the poetry he spoke of dwelt on wounded, suf- 
fering love, on the anguish of timid hearts, and the sobs 
of unknown despairing Arabs, buried for ages under the 
sands of the desert. 

The duke seemed to take pleasure in dwelling on 
these poetic quotations rather than on the reminiscences 
of his travels. His individuality, his own impressions 
vanished before this passionate legacy bequeathed by one 
human race to another. Marianne trembled, believing 
that she could see even in Rosas’s thoughts a desire to 
speak especially for her and to her. Was it not thus 
that he spoke in his own house in the presence of Lissac, 
squatting on his divan like an Arab story-teller ? 

She felt her youth renewed by the memory of all those 
past years. She thought herself back once more in the 
studio on Rue de Laval. Sabine Marsy’s salon dis- 
appeared, Rosas was whispering in her ear, looking at 
her, and allowing the love that he felt to be perceived, 
in spite of Guy. 

Guy ! who was Guy ? Marianne troubled herself 
about no one but De Rosas. Only the duke existed 
now. Had Guy been blended with her life but for a 


120 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINIS! ER 


single moment? She embraced Rosas with her burning 
glance. 

She no longer saw Sulpice, but he never looked away 
from Mademoiselle Kayser. He thought her a most 
charming woman. A magnetic fluid, as it were, flowed 
from her to this man, and he, with wandering mind, did 
not hear one word of Monsieur de Rosas’s narrative, but 
concentrated his thoughts upon that pretty, enticing 
woman, whom he could not refrain from comparing with 
his wife, sitting so near her at this moment. 

Adrienne was very pretty, her beauty was more regular 
than the other’s. Her smooth, blond hair was in con- 
trast with the tumbled, auburn locks of Marianne, and 
yet, extraordinary as it was — Adrienne had never seemed 
to be so cold as on that evening, as she sat there motion- 
less, watching, while a timid habitual smile played over 
her lips. 

Sulpice suffered somewhat in consequence of this 
awkwardness on Adrienne’s part, contrasted as it was 
with the clever freedom of manner, graceful attitude, 
and flowing outlines of that disturbing neighbor, with 
her dull white countenance, half-closed mouth, strange 
curl of her lips, which seemed turned up as if in chal- 
lenge. She was decidedly a Parisian, with all her in- 
toxicating charms, that alluring, if vicious attraction 
that flows from the eyes of even modest girls. Some 
words spoken by Monsieur de Rosas reaching Vaudrey’s 
ears — a description of the somewhat fantastical prepara- 


PART FIRST 


I 2 I 


tion of poison by the Indians, explained by the duke by 
way of parenthesis — suggested to Sulpice that the most 
subtle, the gentlest and most certainly deadly poison was, 
after all, the filtering of a woman’s glance through the 
very flesh of a man, and he thirsted for that longed-for 
poison, intoxicating and delicious — 

He was anxious for the duke to finish his remarks. 
What interest had he in all those travels, those Arabic 
translations, that Oriental poetry, or that poison from 
America? He was seized with the desire to know what 
such a charming creature as Marianne thought. Ah ! 
what a pretty girl ! He had already inquired her name ; 
he happened to know Uncle Kayser; the painter had 
formerly sent him a printed memoir On the Method of 
Moralizing Art through the Mind. 

The minister experienced on hearing Rosas, the feeling 
of enervation that attacked him in the Chamber when, 
near the dinner-hour, an orator became too long-winded 
in his remarks, and he was unable to resist remarking in 
a whisper to the President of his Council who was near 
him : 

“ Suppose we call for the cloture?” 

Monsieur Collard in a diplomatic way expressed his 
approval of Rosas by a look that at the same time re- 
buked his colleague Vaudrey for his lack of sufficient 
gravity. 

The duke did not tire any one except Sulpice. He 
was listened to with delight. The sentimental exterior 


122 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


of this man concealed a jester’s nature, and the sober 
appearance of this Castilian wore all the characteristics 
of a polished lounger. The least smile that animated his 
passive countenance became at once attractive. Mari- 
anne thought him most delightful, or rather, she found 
him just what she has formerly believed him to be, a re- 
fined, delicate and very simple man in spite of his gra- 
ciously haughty manner. When he concluded, the room 
echoed with the thunder of the applause. Even in the 
adjoining rooms the people applauded, for silence had 
been secured so as to hear his remarks. With a wave of 
his gloved hand, Rosas seemed to disclaim that his dis- 
course merited the applause, and he received the greet- 
ings as a man of the world receives a salutation, not as a 
tenor acknowledging the homage paid to him. He 
strove to make his way through the group of young men 
who were stationed behind him. 

“ At last ! ” said Vaudrey, in a half-whisper. 

It was the moment for which he had been waiting. 
He would be able now to address himself to Mademoi- 
selle Kayser ! 

He hastened to offer his arm to Marianne. 

Madame Marsy, eagerly and quickly, had already 
appropriated Monsieur de Rosas, who was moreover 
surrounded and escorted by a crowd who congratulated 
him noisily. Except for that, Marianne would have 
gone direct to him in obedience to her desires. 

Vaudrey’ s arm, however, was not to be despised. The 


PART FIRST 


l2 3 

new minister was the leading figure in the assembly. 
She looked at Sulpice full in the face as if to inquire the 
cause of his eagerness in placing himself at her side and 
observing that this somewhat mocking interrogation dis- 
concerted him, she smiled at him graciously. 

She passed on smiling, amid the double row of guests 
who bowed as she passed. She suddenly felt a sort of 
bewilderment, it seemed to her that all these salutations 
were for her benefit. She believed herself created for 
adoration. Inwardly she felt well-disposed towards Sul- 
pice now, because he had so gallantly chosen and dis- 
tinguished her among all these women. 

After all, she would easily find Rosas again. And who 
knows? It would perhaps be better that the duke 
should seek her. Meanwhile, she crossed the salons, 
leaning on the arm of the minister. It was a kind of 
triumph. 

Good-naturedly and politely, but without pride, the 
minister received all these attentions, becoming as they 
were to him in his official capacity, and as he moved on 
he uttered from time to time some commonplace com- 
pliment to Marianne, reserving his more intimate remarks 
for the immediate future. 

Before the buffet, brilliant with light and the gleaming 
of crystal, the golden-tinted champagne sparkling in the 
goblets, the ruddy tone of the punch, the many fruits, 
the bright-colored granite and the ices, Vaudrey stopped, 
releasing the arm of the young girl but remaining beside 


124 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


her and passing her the sherbet which a lackey handed 
him over the piled-up plates. 

Groups were always encircling him; searching, half- 
anxious glances greeted his. An eager hunt after smiles 
and greetings accompanied the hunt for tutti frutti. But 
the minister confined his attentions to Marianne, chafing 
under the eagerness of his desires, though bearing 
them with good grace, as if he were really the lover 
of the pretty girl. 

Marianne stood stirring the sherbet with the point of 
a silver-plated spoon, examining this statesman, as 
seductive as a fashionable man, with that womanly curi- 
osity that divines a silent declaration. A gold weigher 
does not balance more keenly in his scales an unfamiliar 
coin than a woman estimates and gauges the value of a 
stranger. 

Marianne readily understood that she had fascinated 
Vaudrey. This Vaudrey ! Notwithstanding that he 
possessed a charming wife, he still permitted himself to 
recognize beauty in other women, and to tell them so, 
for he so informed Marianne ! He declared it by his 
smile, his sparkling eyes, and the protecting bearing that 
he instinctively manifested in the presence of this 
creature who glanced at him with perfect composure. 

In the confusion attending the attack on the buffet 
and in the presence of the crowd that formed a half-circle 
round the minister, it was not possible for him to commit 
himself too much ; and the conversation, half- drowned by 


PART FIRST 


12 5 

the noise of voices, was carried on by fits and starts ; but 
in order to make themselves understood, Vaudrey and 
Marianne drew nearer each other and found themselves 
occasionally almost pressed against each other, so that 
the light breath of this woman and the scent of new- 
mown hay that she exhaled, wafted over Sulpice’s face. 
He looked at her so admiringly that it was noticeable. She 
was laced in a light blue satin gown that showed her rosy 
arms to the elbows, and her shoulders gleamed with a 
rosy tint that suggested the rays of a winter sun lighting 
up the pure snow. A singular animation, half-feverish, 
beamed in her small, piercing, restless eyes, and her 
delicate ears with their well-marked rims were quite red. 
The light that fell from the wax candles imparted to her 
hair a Titian red tint as if she had bound her locks with 
henna during the night. She was visibly assured of her 
power and smiled with a strange and provoking air. 

Vaudrey felt really much disturbed, he was attracted 
and half-angered by this pretty girl with dilating nostrils 
who calmly swallowed her glass of sherbet. He thought 
her at once exquisite and lovely, doubly charming with, 
her Parisian grace and in her ball costume, her bare flesh 
as lustrous as mother-of-pearl under the brilliant light. 

Her corsage was ornamented on the left side by an 
embroidered black butterfly, with outstretched wings of 
a brownish, brilliant tint, and Vaudrey, with a smile, 
asked her, without quite understanding what he said, if 
it were an emblematic crest. 


126 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


She smiled. 

“Precisely,” she replied. “What I wear in my cor- 
sage I have in my mind. Black butterflies — or blue 
devils , as you choose.” 

“You are not exceptional,” said Sulpice. .“All 
women are such.” 

“ All women in your opinion then, are a little — what 
is it called? a little out of the perpendicular — or to 
speak more to the point, a little queer, Monsieur le 
Ministre? ” 

The minister smiled in his turn, and looked at Mari- 
anne, whose eyes, seen between the blinking lids, gleamed 
as the electric eyes of a cat shine between its long lashes. 

“No,” he said, “no, but I blame them somewhat for 
loving the blue only in the butterflies of which you speak, 
the blue devils that penetrate their brain ! They are 
born for blue, however, for that which the provincial 
poets style ‘ the azure ’, and they shun it as if blue were 
detestable. Blue ! Nonsense ! Good for men, those 
simpletons, who in the present age, are the only partisans 
of blue in passion and in life.” 

Whether he desired it or not, he had drawn still closer 
to this creature who studied him like a strategist while 
he fawned on her with his glances, losing himself in that 
“ blue ” of which he spoke with a certain elegance, in 
which he desired to express mockery, but which was 
nevertheless sincere. In the same jesting tone, pointing 
to the light blue of her gown, she said : 


PART FIRST 


127 

“ You see, your Excellency, that all women do not 
dislike blue.” 

“ If it is fashionable, parbleu ! And if it becomes their 
beauty as well as this stuff of yours, they would adore it, 
most assuredly.” 

“ They love it otherwise, too — In passion and in life. 
That depends on the women — and on men,” she added, 
showing her white teeth while smiling graciously. 

She dropped her spoon in the saucer and handed the 
sherbet to a servant. With an involuntary movement — 
or perhaps, after all, it was a shrewdly calculated one — 
she almost grazed Sulpice’s cheek and lips when she ex- 
tended her round and firm arm, and Sulpice, who was 
somewhat bewildered, was severely tempted, like some 
collegian, to kiss it in passage. 

He closed his eyes and a moment after, on reopening 
them, the disturbing element having passed, he saw Ma- 
rianne before him with her fan in her hand, and as if 
the image of which he spoke only now recurred to his 
memory, he said : 

“ Mademoiselle, it seems to me that in this very cos- 
tume and as charming as you are at this moment, I have 
seen your portrait at the Salon ; is it not so? ” 

“Yes,” she said. “It is the very best painting that 
my uncle has produced.” 

« I thought it excellent before seeing you,” said Sul- 
pice, “but now — ” 

She did not feel satisfied with the smile that accom- 


■128 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

panied the compliment. She wished to hear the entire 
phrase. 

“ Now — ? ” said she, as a most seductive smile played 
on her lips. 

“ Now, I find it inferior to the original ! ” 

“ One always says so, your Excellency, except perhaps to 
the artist ; but I was greatly afraid that you would not think 
me so, arrayed in this — this famous blue — this sky-blue 
that you love so much.” 

“And that I love a hundred times more from this 
evening forward,” said he, in a changed and genuinely 
affected tone. 

She did not reply, but looked at him full in the face 
as if to inform him that she understood him. He was 
quite pale. 

“ Would you not like to be one of the bright ornaments 
of my salon, as you are of that of Madame Marsy? ” 
said he, in a whisper. 

“With the greatest happiness, your Excellency.” 

What Sulpice said was not heard by the others ; but 
Marianne felt that she was observed, envied already, and 
manifested her complete satisfaction with a toss of her 
head. In this atmosphere of flattery, oppressive as with 
the heavy odor of incense, she experienced a sensation 
of omnipotence, the intoxication of that power with 
which Vaudrey was invested, whose envied reflection was 
cast on her by that simple aside spoken in the midst of 
the crowd. 


PART FIRST 


129 

She was delighted and exceedingly proud. She almost 
forgot that her visit had been made on Rosas’s ac- 
count. 

Vaudrey was about to add something, when Madame 
Marsy in passing to greet her guests, noticed Marianne 
and grasping her hand : 

“ I beg your pardon, your Excellency,” she said, “but 
I must take her away from you. I have been asked for 
her.” 

“ By whom? ” said Vaudrey. 

“ Monsieur de Rosas ! ” 

Vaudrey looked at Marianne. He observed distinct- 
ly a flash of joy illuminate her pale face and he felt a 
sudden and singular discontent, amounting almost to 
physical anguish. And why, great heavens ? 

Marianne smiled a salutation ; he half-bowed and 
watched her as she went away, with a sort of angry 
regret, as if he had something further to say to this 
woman who was almost a stranger to him, and who, guid- 
ed by Sabine, now disappeared amid the crowd of black 
coats and bright toilets. And then, almost immediately 
and suddenly, he was surrounded and besieged by 
his colleagues of the Chamber, men either indifferent or 
seeking favors, who only awaited the conclusion of the 
conversation with Mademoiselle Kayser, which they 
would certainly have precipitated, except for the fear of 
acting indiscreetly, in order to precipitate themselves on 
him. Amid all those unknown persons who approached 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


130 

him, Vaudrey sought a friend as he felt himself lost and 
taken by assault by this rabble. 

The sight of the face of a friend, older than himself, a 
spare man with a white beard very carefully trimmed, 
caused him a feeling of pleasure, and he joyfully ex- 
claimed : 

“ Eh ! pardieu ! why, here is Ramel ! ” 

He immediately extended both hands in warm greet- 
ing to this man of sixty years, wearing a white cravat 
twisted round his neck, like a neckerchief in the old- 
fashioned style, and whose black waistcoat with its stand- 
ing collar of ancient pattern, was conspicuous amid the 
open waistcoats of the fashionably-dressed young men 
who had been very eagerly surrounding the minister for 
the last few moments. 

“ Good day, Ramel ! — How delighted I am to see 
you !•” — 

“And I also,” said Ramel in a friendly and affection- 
ate tone, while his face that seemed severe, but was only 
good-natured and masculine, suddenly beamed. “ It is 
not a little on your account that I come here.” 

“ Really?” 

“ Really. I was anxious to shake hands with you. 
It is so long since I saw you. How much has hap- 
pened since then ! ” 

“ Ah ! Ramel, who the devil would have said that I 
should be minister when I took you my first article for 
the Nation Fran^aise," said Vaudrey. 


PART FIRST 


13 1 

“Bah! who is not a minister ? ” said Ramel. “You 
are. Remember what Napoleon said to Bourrienne as 
he entered the Tuileries : ‘ Here we are, Bourrienne ! 
now we must stay here ! ’ ” 

“ That is exactly what Granet said to me when he told 
me of the new combination.” 

“ Granet expressed in that, more of an after-thought 
than your old Ramel.” 

“ My best friend,” said Sulpice with emotion, grasping 
this man’s hands in his. 

“ It is so much more meritorious on your part to tell 
me that,” said Ramel, “ seeing that now you do not lack 
friendships.” 

“You are still a pessimist, Ramel?” 

“ I — A wild optimist, seeing that I believe everything 
and everybody ! But I must necessarily believe in the 
stupidity of my fellows, and upon this point I am hardly 
mistaken.” 

“ But what brings you to Madame Marsy’s, you who 
are a perfect savage ? ” 

“ Tamed ! — Because, I repeat to you, I knew that you 
were coming and that Monsieur de Rosas was to speak 
on the subject of savages, and these please me. If I had 
been rich or if I only had enough to live on, I should have 
passed my life in travelling. And in the end, I shall 
have lived between Montmartre and Batignolles : a tortoise 
dreaming that he is a swallow — ” 

“Ramel, my dear fellow,” said the minister, “would 


132 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


you wish me to give you a mission where you could go 
and study whatever seemed good to you? ” 

“ With my rheumatism? Thanks, your Excellency ! ” 
said Ramel, smiling. “No, I am too old, and never 
having asked any one for anything, I am not going to 
begin at my age.” 

“You do not ask, it is offered you.” 

“ Well, I have no desire for that. I am at the hour of 
the far niente that precedes the final slumber. It is a 
pleasant condition. One has seen so many things and 
persons that one has no further desires.” 

“ The fact is,” said the minister, “ that if all the people 
you have obligated in your life had solicited an invitation 
from Madame Marsy, these salons would not be large 
enough to contain them.” 

“ Bah ! they have all forgotten as I have, myself,” said 
Ramel, with a shake of his head and smiling pleasantly. 

Vaudrey felt intense pleasure in meeting, in the midst 
of this crowd of indifferent or admiring persons, the man 
who had formerly seen him arrive in Paris, and with 
whom he had corresponded from the heart of his prov- 
ince, as with a kinsman. There was, in fact, between 
them, a relationship of mind and soul that united this 
veteran of the press with this young statesman. 

The ideal sought was the same, but the temperaments 
were different. Ramel, although he had known them, 
had for a long time avoided those excitements of 
struggle and power that inflamed Vaudrey’ s blood. 


PART FIRST 


133 

“ It was a glorious day when my pulse became regu- 
lated,” he said. “ Experience brought me the needed 
tonic.” 

Denis Ramel was a wise man. He took life as he 
found it, without enthusiasm as without bitterness. He 
was not wealthy. More than sixty years old, he found 
himself, after a life of hard, rough and continuous 
struggle, as badly off as when he started out on his 
career, full of burning hopes. He had passed his life 
honorably as a journalist — a journalist of the good old 
times, of the school of thought, not of news- tellers, — he 
had loyally and conscientiously exercised a profession in 
which he took pleasure; he had read much, written 
much, consumed much midnight oil, touched upon 
everything ; put his fingers into every kind of pie with- 
out soiling them, and after having valiantly turned the 
heavy millstone of daily labor incessantly renewed for 
forty years, he had reached the end of his journey, the 
brink of the grave, almost penniless, after having skirted 
fortune and seen Opportunity float toward him her per- 
fumed and intoxicating locks more than a hundred times. 
Bent, weary, almost forgotten, and unknown and mis- 
understood by the new generation, that styled this en- 
thusiasm, more eager, moreover, than that of juvenile 
faith, “ old ” — he saw the newcomers rise as he might 
have beheld the descent of La Courtille. 

“ It amuses me.” 

Ramel had, in the course of his career as a publicist, 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


134 

as a dealer in fame, assisted without taking part therein, 
in the formation of syndicates, allotments of shares and 
financial intrigues ; and putting his shoulder to the 
wheel of enterprises that appeared to him to be solid, 
while seeking to strike out those which appeared to be 
doubtful, he had created millionaires without asking a 
cent from them, just as he had made ministers without 
accepting even a thread of ribbon at their hands. 

This infatuating craft of a maker of men pleased him. 
All those pioneers in the great human comedy, he had 
seen on their entrance, hesitating and crying to him for 
assistance. This statesman, swelling out with his impor- 
tance in the tribune, had received the benefit of his cor- 
rection of his earlier harangues. He had encouraged, dur- 
ing his competition for the Prix de Rome, this member of 
the Institute who to-day represented national art at the Villa 
Medicis ; he had seen this composer, now a millionaire, 
beg for a private rehearsal as he might ask alms, and 
slip into one’s hands concert tickets for the Herz hall. 
He was the first to point out the verses of the poet who 
now wore l’ habit vert. He had first heralded the fame 
of the actor now in vogue, of the tenor who to-day had his 
villas at Nice, yes, Ramel was the first to say : “ He is 
one of the chosen few ! ” 

Old, weary and knowing, very gentle and refined in 
his banter, and refusing to be blinded or irritated by the 
trickeries of destiny, Denis Ramel, when asked why, at 
his age and with his talents, he was neither a deputy, nor 


PART FIRST 


*35 

a millionaire, nor a member of the Institute, but only a 
Warwick living like a poor devil, smiled and said, with 
the tone of a man who has probed to the bottom the 
affairs of life : 

“ Bah ! what is the use ? All that is not so very desir- 
able. Ministers, academicians, millionaires, prefects, 
men of power, I know all about them. I have made 
them all my life. The majority of those who strut about 
at this very time, well ! well ! it is I who made them ! ” 

And, like a philosopher allowing the rabble to pass 
him, he might have been their chief, but preferred to be 
their judge, he locked himself in his apartments with his 
books, his pictures, his engravings, his little collection 
slowly gathered year by year, article by article, smoking 
his pipe tranquilly, and at times reviewing the pages of 
his life, just as he might have fingered the leaves of a 
portfolio of engravings, thinking when he chanced to 
meet some notable person of the day who shunned him 
or merely saluted him curtly and stiffly : 

“ You were not so proud when you came to ask me to 
certify your pay-slip for the cashier of the journal.” 

Ramel had always greatly esteemed Sulpice Vaudrey. 
This man seemed to him to be more refined and less 
forgetful than others. Vaudrey had never “ posed. ” 
As a minister, he recalled with deep emotion the period 
of his struggles. Ramel, the former manager of the 
Nation Frans aise, was one of the objects of his affec- 
tion and admiration. He would have been delighted to 


136 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

snatch this man from his seclusion and place him in the 
first rank, to make this sexagenarian who had created and 
moulded so many others, noteworthy by a sudden stroke. 

Amid the tumultuous throng, and feeling overjoyed to 
find once more one whom he could trust, to whom he 
could abandon himself entirely, he repeated to him in all 
sincerity : 

“ Come, Ramel ! Would you consent to be my secre- 
tary general? ” 

“ No ! your Excellency,” Ramel answered, as a kindly 
smile played beneath his white moustaches. 

“ To oblige me ? — To help me?” 

“ No — Why, I am an egotist, my dear Vaudrey. Truly, 
that would make me too jealous. Take Navarro t,” he 
added, as he pointed to a fashionable man, elegantly 
cravatted, carrying his head high, who had just greeted 
Vaudrey, using the same phrase eight times : “ My dear 
minister — your Excellency — my minister — ” 

“ Navarrot? ” 

“ He appears to be very much attached to you ! M 

“You are very wicked, Ramel. He holds to the 
office and not to the man. He is not the friend of the 
minister, but of ministers. He is one of the ordinary 
touters of the ministry. He applauds everything that 
their Excellencies choose to say.” 

“ Oh ! I know those touters,” said the old journalist. 
“ When a minister is in power, they cheer him to the 
echo ; when he is down, they belabor him.” 


PART FIRST 


I 37 

Vaudrey looked at him and laughingly said : “ Begone ! 
journalist ! ” 

“ But at any rate,” — and here he extended his hand 
to Ramel — “you will see me this evening?” 

“ Certainly.” 

“ And you still live at? ” 

“ Rue Boursault, Boulevard des Batignolles.” 

“ Till then, my dear Ramel ! If occasion require, 
you will not refuse to give me your advice? ” 

“Nor my devotion. But without office, remember 
without office,” said Ramel, still smiling. 

Vaudrey took great delight in chatting with his old 
friend, but for a moment he had been seized with an 
eager desire to find amid the increasing crowd that 
thronged the salons, the pretty girl who had appeared to 
him like a statue of Desire, whetted desire, but even in 
her charms somewhat unwholesome, yet disturbing and 
appetizing. 

He had come to Sabine Marsy’s only by chance and 
as if to display in public the joy of his triumph, just as a 
newly decorated man willingly accepts invitations in 
order to show off his new ribbon, but he now felt happy 
for having done so. He had promised himself only to 
put himself in evidence and then disappear with Adrienne 
to the enjoyment of their usual chats, to taste that inti- 
macy that was so dear to him, but which, since his estab- 
lishment on Place Beauvau, had vanished. 

He habitually disliked such receptions as that in which 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


*38 

he now took part, those soirees as fatiguing as those crowds 
where one packs six hundred persons in salons capable 
of holding only sixty : commonplace receptions, where the 
master of the house is as happy when he refuses invita- 
tions as a theatre-manager when his play is the rage ; 
where one is stifled, crushed, and where one can only 
reach the salon after a pugilistic encounter, and where the 
capture of a glass of syrup entails an assault, and the 
securing of an overcoat demands a battle. He held in 
horror those salons where there is no conversation, where 
no one is acquainted, where, because of the hubbub of 
the crowd or the stifling silence attending a concert, one 
cannot exchange either ideas or phrases, not even a 
furtive handshake, because of the packing and crushing of 
the guests. It was a miracle that he had just been able 
to exchange a few words with Mademoiselle Kayser and 
Ramel. The vulgarity of the place had at once im- 
pressed him, — the more so because he was the object of 
attraction for all those crowded faces. 

All that gathering of insignificant, grave and preten- 
tious young men, who, while they crowded, made their 
progress in the ranks of the sub-prefects, councillors of 
prefectures, picking up nominations under the feet of the 
influential guests as they would cigar stumps, disgusted 
him ; men of twenty years, born, as it were, with white 
cravats, pretentious and pensive, creatures of office and 
not of work, haunting the Chambers and the ante- 
chambers, mere collectors of ideas, repeaters of serious 


PART FIRST 


139 

commonplaces, salon democrats who would not offer 
their ungloved hand to a workman on the street ; staff- 
majors ambitious of honors and not of devotion, whom 
he felt crowding around him, with smiles on their lips 
and applications in their pockets. How he preferred 
the quiet pleasure of reading at the fireside, a chat with 
a friend, or listening to one of Beethoven’s sonatas, or a 
selection from Mendelssohn played by Adrienne, whose 
companionship made the unmarked flight of the hours 
pass more sweetly. 

It was for that that he was created. At least he 
thought so and believed it. And now this salon that he 
had simply desired to traverse, at once seemed altogether 
delightful to him. And all this was due to his meeting 
a divine creature in the midst of this crowd. He was 
eager to find Marianne, to see her again. She aroused 
his curiosity as some enigma might. 

What, then, was this woman, was she virtuous or of 
questionable status ? Ah ! she was a woman, or rather 
ten women in one, at the very least ! A woman from 
head to foot ! A woman to her finger tips, a refined, 
Parisian woman, perverse even in her virginity, and a 
virgin perhaps in her perversity. A problem in fair 
flesh. 

As Vaudrey hurriedly left the buffet, every one made 
way for him, and he crossed the salons, eagerly looking 
out for Marianne. As he passed along, he saw Guy de 
Lissac sitting on a chair upholstered in garnet satin, his 


140 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


right hand resting on the gilded back and chatting with 
Adrienne who was fanning herself leisurely. On noticing 
Sulpice, the young woman smiled at him even at a dis- 
ance, the happy smile of a loving woman, and she em- 
braced him witlj a pure glance, asking a question without 
uttering a word, knowing well that he habitually left in 
great haste. 

“Do you wish to return?” was the meaning of her 
questioning glance. 

He passed before her, replying with a smile, but with- 
out appearing to have understood her, and disappeared 
in another salon, while Lissac said to Adrienne : 

“ What about the ministry, madame ? ” 

“ Oh ! don’t speak to me of it ! — it frightens me. In 
those rooms, it seems to me that I am not at home. 
Do you know just what I feel? I fancy myself travelling, 
never, however, leaving the house. Ministers certainly 
should be bachelors. Men have all the honor, but their 
wives endure all the weariness.” 

“ There must, however, be at the bottom of this weari- 
ness, some pleasure, since they so bitterly regret to take 
leave of it.” 

“Ah! Dieu!" said Adrienne. “Already I believe 
that I should regret nothing. No, I assure you, nothing 
whatever.” 

She, too, might have desired, — as Vaudrey did for- 
merly — to leave the soiree, to be with her husband 
again, and she thought that Sulpice found it necessary 


PART FIRST 


141 

to remain longer, since he had not definitely decided on 
going away. 

The new salon that he entered, communicated with a 
smaller, circular one, hung with Japanese silk draperies, 
and lighted by a Venetian chandelier that cast a subdued 
light over the divans upon which some of the guests sat 
chatting. Sulpice immediately divined, as if by instinct, 
that Marianne was there. He went straight in that 
direction, and as he entered the doorway, through the 
opening framed by two pale blue portieres, he saw in 
front of him, sitting side by side, the pretty girl and the 
Due de Rosas to whom she had listened so attentively, 
almost devotedly, a little earlier ; he recalled this now. 

The light fell directly on Mademoiselle Kayser’s 
shoulders and played over her fair hair. The duke was 
looking at her. 

Vaudrey took but a single step forward. 

He experienced an altogether curious and inexpli- 
cable sensation. This tete-a-tete displeased him. 

At that moment, on half-turning round, — perhaps by 
chance — she perceived the minister and greeting him 
with a sweet smile, she rose and beckoned to him to 
approach her. 

The sky-blue satin hangings, on which the light fell, 
seemed like a natural framework for the beautiful blonde 
creature. 

“Your Excellency,” she said, “permit me to intro- 
duce my friend, the Due de Rosas, he is too accom- 


142 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


plished not to appreciate eloquence and he entertains 
the greatest admiration for you.” 

Rosas had risen in his turn, and greeted the minister 
with a very peculiar half-inclination, not as a suitor in 
the presence of a powerful man, but as a nobleman 
greeting a man of talent. 

Vaudrey sought to discover an agreeable word in the 
remarks of this man but he failed to do so. He had, 
nevertheless, just before applauded Rosas’s remarks, 
either out of condescension or from politeness. But it 
seemed to him that here the duke was no longer the 
same man. He gave him the impression of an intruder 
who had thrust himself in the way that led to some pos- 
sible opportunity. He nevertheless concealed all trace 
of the ill-humor that he himself could not define or ex- 
plain, and ended by uttering a commonplace phrase in 
praise of the duke, but which really meant nothing. 

As he was about to move away, Marianne detained 
him by a gesture : 

“Well, your Excellency,” she remarked, with a charm- 
ing play of her lips as she smiled, “you see,” — and she 
pointed to the blue draperies of the little salon, as 
dainty as a boudoir — “you see that there are some 
women who like blue.” 

“Yes, Madame Marsy ! — ” Vaudrey answered, with an 
entirely misplaced irony that naturally occurred to him, 
as a reproach. 

“So do I,” said Marianne. “We have only chatted 


PART FIRST 


*43 


together five minutes, but I have found that time enough 
to discover that you and I have many tastes in common. 
I am greatly flattered thereby.” 

“And I am very happy,” replied Vaudrey, who was dis- 
turbed by her direct glances that pierced him like a blade. 

She had resumed her place on the divan, but Vaudrey 
had already forgiven her tete-a-tete with Rosas — and in 
truth, what had he to forgive ? — This burning glance had 
effaced everything. He bore it away like a bright ray 
and still shuddered at the sensation he experienced. 

He was in a hurry to leave. He now felt a sudden 
attack of nervousness. He was at the same moment 
charmed and bored. Again he resumed, — amid the 
throng that made way for him, humbly performing its duty 
as a crowd — his role of minister, raising his head, and 
greeting with his official smile, but, at the bottom of his 
heart, really consumed by an entirely different thought. 
His brain was full of blue, floating clouds, and Mari- 
anne’s voice that he still heard, rang in his ears with an 
insinuating tone, whispering : “We have many tastes in 
common,” together with all kinds of mutual understand- 
ings which, as it were, burned like a fire in his heart. 

He saw Adrienne still seated in the same place and 
smiling sweetly at him, — a smile of ardent devotion, but 
which seemed to him to be lukewarm. He leaned 
toward her, reached his hands out and said to De Lissac, 
hurriedly, as he grasped his hand : “ We meet later, do 

we not, Guy?” Then he disappeared in the ante- 


144 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


chamber, while the servants hurried toward Madame 
Vaudrey, bearing her cloak, and as Vaudrey put on his 
overcoat, a voice called out : 

“His Excellency’s carriage.” 

“I am exhausted,” said Adrienne, when she had taken 
her place in the carriage. “What about yourself? ” 

“ I ? not at all ! I am not at all tired. It was very 
entertaining ! One must show one’s self now — ” 

“ I know that very well,” the young wife replied. 

Like a child who is anxious to go to sleep, she gently 
rested her hood-covered head on Sulpice’s shoulder. 
Her tiny hands sought her husband’s hand, to press it 
beneath her cloak, as warm as a nest ; and after she had 
closed her eyes, overcome as she was by weariness, her 
breathing seemed to become gradually almost as regular 
as in slumber, and Sulpice Vaudrey recalled once more, 
beneath the light of the chandeliers, that pretty blonde, 
with her half-bare arms and shoulders, and strange eyes, 
who moistened her dry lips and smiled as she swallowed 
her sherbet. 


VI 

In the pretty little Japanese salon, with its panels of 
sky-blue satin, framed with gilded bamboo, Marianne was 
seated on the divan, half-facing the duke as if to pene- 
trate his inward thoughts, and she seemed to the Castilian 
as she did to Vaudrey, to be a most charming creature 


PART FIRST 


J 45 

amid all those surroundings that might have been made 
expressly to match her fair beauty. Moreover, with 
Rosas, her freedom of manner was entirely different 
from that which she manifested to Sulpice, and she em- 
braced the young man with a passionate, fervent glance. 

Jos£ felt himself grow pale in the presence of this 
exquisite creature whose image, treasured in the depths 
of his heart, he had borne with him wherever his fancy 
had led him to travel. He gazed at her as a man looks 
at a woman whom he has long desired, but whom some 
urgent necessity has kept out of his way, and who by 
chance is suddenly brought near him, fate putting within 
our reach the dream — 

She was prettier than ever, graceful and blooming, 
“ more matured,” like a fruit whose color is more 
tempting to the appetite. Sabine had just before very 
naturally brought these two together and instinctively, as 
if they had to exchange many confidences, they had im- 
mediately sought a retired spot away from that crowd 
and were seated there in that salon where Vaudrey, 
already half-jealous, guessed that Marianne would be. 

Yes, indeed, she had many confidences to impart to 
that man who had suddenly entered the sphere of her 
life and had suddenly disappeared, remaining during 
several years as if dead to her. It seemed to her as 
they sat face to face that this flight of wasted time had 
made her still younger, and Rosas, notwithstanding his 

cold demeanor, allowed his former passion to be divined ; 
io 


146 his excellency the minister 

the women one loves unmask one’s secret before a man 
can himself explain what he feels. 

She felt a profound, sincere joy. She recalled a similar 
conversation with Jos£ in his studio, that Oriental corner 
hidden in the Rue de Laval. The Japanese satin en- 
hanced the illusion. 

“ Do you know that it seems to me,” she said, “ that 
I have been dreaming, and that I am not a whit older? ” 

“You are not altered, in fact,” said Rosas. “I am 
mistaken — ” 

“ Yes, I know. I have grown lovelier. That is a com- 
pliment that I am used to — Lissac has told me that 
already, only the other morning.” 

She bit her lips almost imperceptibly, as if to blame 
herself for her imprudence, but had she mentioned Guy’s 
name designedly, she could not have been better satisfied 
with the result. Monsieur de Rosas, usually very pale, 
became pallid, and a slight curl of his lip, although im- 
mediately suppressed, gave an upward turn to his red- 
dish moustache. 

“ Ah ! ” he said, “ You still see Guy.” 

“ I ! — I had not spoken a single word to him until I 
asked him to have an invitation sent me for this soiree, 
and then it was merely because I knew you would be 
here.” 

“Ah ! ” said Jos6 again, without adding a w r ord. 

Marianne was satisfied. She knew now that the duke 
still loved her, since the mention of Lissac’s name had 


PART FIRST 


*47 

made him tremble. Well ! she had shrewdly understood 
her Rosas. 

“And what have you been doing, my dear duke, 
for such an age ? ” she said. 

She looked at him as she had looked atVaudrey, with 
her sweet and shrewd smile, which moved him pro- 
foundly, and her glance penetrated to the inmost depths 
of his being. 

“ You know the old saying : ‘ I have lived.’ It is great 
folly, perhaps, but it is the truth.” 

“And I wager,” boldly said Marianne, “ that you have 
never thought of me.” 

“ Of you ? ” 

“ Of me. Of that mad Marianne, who is the mad- 
dest creature of all those you have met in your travels 
from the North Pole to Cambodia, but who has by no 
means a wicked heart, although a sufficiently unhappy 
one, and that has never ceased to beat a little too rapidly 
at certain reminiscences which you do not recall, per- 
haps — who knows ? ” 

“ I remember everything,” replied the duke in a grave 
voice. 

Marianne looked at him and commenced to laugh. 

“ Oh ! how you say that, mon Dieu / Do you remem- 
ber I used to call you Don Carlos ? Well, you have just 
reminded me of Philip II. ‘ I remember everything ! ’ 
B-r-r ! what a funereal tone. Our reminiscences are not, 
however, very dramatic.” 


148 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

“ That depends on the good or ill effects that they 
cause,” said Rosas very seriously. 

“ Ah ! God forgive me if I have ever willingly done 
you the least harm, my dear Rosas. Give me your hand. 
I have always loved you dearly, my friend.” 

She drew him gently toward her, half bending her face 
under the cold glance of the young man : 

" Look at me closely and see if I lie.” 

The duke actually endeavored to read the gray-blue 
eyes of Marianne ; but so strange a flash darted from 
them, that he recoiled, withdrawing his hands from the 
pressure of those fingers. 

“ Come, come !” she said, “ I see that my cat-like 
eyes still make you afraid. Are they, then, very dread- 
ful ? ” 

She changed their expression to one of sweetness, 
humility, timidity and winsomeness. 

“ After all, that is something to be proud of, my dear 
duke. It is very flattering to make a man tremble who 
has killed tigers as our sportsmen kill partridges.” 

“You know very well why I am still sufficiently a 
child to tremble before you, Marianne,” murmured Jos£. 
“ At my age, it is folly ; but I am as superstitious as 
gamblers — or sailors, those other gamblers, who stake 
their lives, and I have never met you without feeling 
that I was about to suffer.” 

“ To suffer from what ? ” 

“ To suffer through you,” said the duke. “ Do you 


PART FIRST 


149 

know that if I had never met you, it is probable that I 
should never have seen all those countries of which I 
spoke just now, and that I should have been married 
long ago, at Madrid or at Toledo ? ” 

“ And I prevented you ? — ” 

Rosas interrupted Marianne, saying abruptly, and 
smiling almost sadly : 

“ Ah ! my dear one, if you only knew — you have pre- 
vented many things.” 

“ If I have prevented you from being unhappy, I am 
delighted. Besides, it is evident that you have never 
had a very determined inclination for marriage, seeing 
that you have preferred to trot around the world.” 

“ Like Don Quixote, eh ? Do you know, moreover, 
since we are talking of all these things, that you have 
saved me from dying in the corner like an abandoned 
dog ?” 

“I ? ” said Marianne. 

“You or your songs, as you please. Yes, in Egypt I 
suffered from fever something like typhus. They left 
me for dead, as after a battle, in the most wretched and 
frightful of native villages. No doctors, who might, per- 
haps, have cured me, not a bed, not even a mattress. 
My servants, believing me past hope, abandoned me — 
or rather, for I prefer your Parisian word — cast me adrift 
— there is no other expression. There I was, stretched 
out on a heap of damp straw — in short, on a dung- 
hill—” 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


* 5 ° 

“ You, Rosas ? ” 

“ In all conscience, I correctly portrayed Job there ; 
lean, with a three months’ old beard, and with the death- 
rattle in my throat; in the open air — don’t alarm your- 
self, the nights were warm. In the evening the fellah- 
women gathered round me, while I watched the sun that 
tinted their cheeks with bronze — there were some pretty 
ones among them, I have painted them in water-colors 
from memory — they poured out their insults upon me in 
guttural tones, which I unfortunately understood, as I am 
an Orientalist,” — he smiled — “ and in addition to those 
insults they threw mud at me, a fetid mass of filth. The 
women were charming, although they took part in it. 
These people did not like the roumi, the shivering Chris- 
tian. Besides, women do not like men who have fallen. 
They do not like feeble creatures. — ” 

“ Bah ! — and where were the hospitals, the Sisters of 
Charity ? ” 

“ Are you quite sure that the Sisters of Charity are wom- 
en, my dear Marianne ? — In a word, I swear that I asked 
only one thing, as I lay on that devilish, poisonous dung- 
hill, and that was, to end the matter in the quickest pos- 
sible way, that I might be no longer thought of, when — 
I don’t know why, or, rather, I know very well — in my 
fever, a certain voice reached me — whence ? — from far 
away it commenced humming, — I should proclaim it 
yours among a thousand — a ridiculously absurd refrain 
that we heard together one evening at the Varies, at 


PART FIRST 


I S I 

an anniversary celebration. And this Boulevard chant 
recurred to me there in the heart of that desert, and 
transported me at a single bound to Paris, and I saw 
you again and these fair locks that I now look at, I saw 
them, too, casting upon your forehead the light shadow 
that they do now. I heard your laugh. I actually felt 
that I had you beside me in one of the stage-boxes at 
the theatre, listening to the now forgotten singer hum- 
ming the refrain that had so highly amused you, Guy 
and myself — ” 

It seemed to Marianne that the duke hesitated for a 
moment before pronouncing Guy’s name. It was an al- 
most imperceptible hesitation, rather felt than seen. 

Rosas quickly recovered : 

“ On my word, you will see directly that the Boulevard 
lounger was hidden under your gloomy Castilian, — that 
refrain took such a hold on my poor wandering brain, 
such an entire possession, that I clung to it when the 
fever was at its height — I hummed it again and again, 
and on my honor, it banished the fever, perhaps by some 
homeopathic process, for at any other time, this deuced 
refrain would have aroused a fever in me.” 

“Why? — Because it was I who formerly hummed it? ” 

“Yes,” said Rosas in a lowered tone. “Well! yes, 
just for that reason ! — ” 

He drew closer to her on the divan, and she said to 
him, laughingly : 

“ How fortunate it is that Faure is singing yonder ! 


152 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

He attracts everybody and so leaves us quite alone in 
this salon. It is very pleasant. Would you like to go 
and applaud Faure? It is some years since I heard 
him.” 

“You are very malicious, Marianne,” said the duke. 
“ Let me steal this happy, fleeting hour. I am very 
happy.” 

“ You are happy? ” 

“ Profoundly happy, and simply because I am near 
you, listening to you and looking at you — ” 

“ My poor Job,” she said, still laughing, “ would you 
like me to sing you the refrain that we heard at the 
Varies?” 

De Rosas did not reply, but simply looked at her. 

He felt as if he were surrounded with all the perfume 
of youth. On a console beside Marianne, stood a vase 
of inlaid enamel containing sprigs of white lilacs which 
as she leaned forward, surrounded her fair head as with 
an aureole of spring. Her locks were encircled with milk- 
white flowers and bright green leaves, transparent and 
clear, like the limpid green of water ; and at times these 
sprigs were gently shaken, dropping a white bud on Mari- 
anne’s hair, that looked like a drop of milk amid a heap 
of ruddy gold. 

Ah ! how at this moment, all the poetry, all the past 
with its unacknowledged love swelled Rosas’s heart and 
rushed to his lips. In this brilliantly-lighted salon, 
under the blaze of the lights, amid the shimmering re- 


PART FIRST 


*5 3 

flections of the satin draperies, he forgot everything in 
his rapture at the presence of this woman, lovely to 
adoration, whose glance penetrated his very veins and 
filled him with restless thoughts. 

The distant music, gentle, penetrating and languish- 
ing, some soothing air from Gounod, reached them like 
a gentle breeze wafted into the room. 

Jos£ believed himself to be in a dream. 

“Ah ! if you only knew, madame,” he said, becoming 
more passionate with each word that he spoke, as if he 
had been gulping down some liqueur, “ if you only knew 
how you have travelled with me everywhere, in thought, 
there, carried with me like a scapular — ” 

“ My portrait? ” said Marianne. “ I remember it. I 
was very slender then, prettier, a young girl, in fact.” 

“ No ! no ! not your portrait. I tore that up in a fit 
of frenzy.” 

“ Tore it up? ” 

“ Yes, as I thought that those eyes, those lips and that 
brow belonged to another.” 

Marianne’s cheeks became pallid. 

“ But I have taken with me something better than 
that portrait : I preserved you, you were always present, 
and pretty, so pretty — as you are now, Marianne — Look 
at yourself ! No one could be lovelier ! ” 

“ And why,” she said slowly, speaking in a deep, en- 
dearing tone, “ why did you not speak to me thus, of 
old?” 


I 54 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ Ah ! of old ! ” said the duke angrily. 

She allowed her head to fall on the back of the divan, 
looking at this man as she well knew how, and insensibly 
creeping closer to him, she breathed in his ears these 
burning words : 

“ Formerly, one who was your friend was beside me, 
is that not so? ” 

“ Do not speak to me of him,” Jos6 said abruptly. 

“ On the contrary, I am determined to tell you that 
even if I had loved him, I should not have hesitated for 
a moment to leave him and follow you. But I did not 
love him.” 

“ Marianne ! ” 

“You won’t believe me? I never loved him. I have 
never been his mistress.” 

“ I do not ask your secret. I do not speak of him,” 
said the duke, who had now become deadly pale. 

“And I am determined to speak to you of him. 
Never, you understand, never was Guy de Lissac my 
lover. No, in spite of appearances ; he has never even 
kissed my lips. I thought I loved him, but before yield- 
ing, I had time to discover that I did not love him ! And 
I waited, I swear to you, expecting that you would say 
to me : i I love you ! ’ ” 

“I?” 

“ You,” said Marianne, in a feeble tone. “ You never 
guessed then?” 

And she crept with an exquisitely undulating move- 


PART FIRST 


*55 

ment still closer to Rosas, who, as if drawn by some mag- 
netic fluid, surrendered his face to this woman with the 
wandering eyes, half-open lips, from which a gentle 
sigh escaped and died away in the duke’s hair. 

He said nothing, but hastily seizing Marianne’s hand, 
he drew her face close to his lips, her pink nostrils dilated 
as if the better to breathe the incense of love ; and 
wild, distracted, intoxicated, he pressed his feverish, 
burning lips upon that fresh mouth that he felt exhaled 
the perfume of a flower that opens to the morning 
dew. 

“ I love you now, I loved youthen ! — ” Marianne said 
to him, after that kiss that paled his cheeks. 

Rosas had risen : a thunder of applause greeted the 
termination of a song in the other salon and the throng 
was pouring into the smaller salon. Marianne saw Uncle 
Kayser, who was arguing with Ramel, whose kindly, lean 
face wore an expression of weariness. She also rose, 
grasped the duke’s hands with a nervous pressure and 
said as she still gazed at him : 

“ There is my uncle. We shall see each other again, 
shall we not? ” 

She crushed Rosas with her electric glance. 

Preceding the duke, she went straight to Kayser and 
took his arm, leaning on it as if to show that she was 
not alone, that she had a natural protector, and was 
not, as Rosas might have supposed, a girl without any 
position. 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


J 5 6 

Kayser was almost astonished at the eagerness of his 
niece. 

“ Let us go I ” she said to him. 

“What ! leave? Why, there is to be a supper.” 

“Well! we will sup at the studio,” she replied nerv- 
ously. “We will discuss the morality of art.” 

She had now attained her end. She realized that 
anything she might add would cool the impression al- 
ready made on the duke. She wished to leave him 
under the intoxication of that kiss. 

“ Let us go! ” said Kayser, drawing himself up in an ill- 
humored way. “ Since you wish it — what a funny idea ! 
— Ramel,” he said, extending his hand to the old jour- 
nalist, “if your feelings prompt you, I should like to 
show you some canvases.” 

“ I go out so rarely,” said Ramel. 

“ Huron ! ” said the painter. 

“ Puritan ! ” said Marianne, also offering her hand to 
Denis Ramel. 

Rosas looked after her and saw her disappear 
amongst the guests in the other salon, under the bright 
flood of light shed by the chandeliers ; and when she 
was gone, it seemed to him that the little Japanese salon 
was positively empty and that night had fallen on it. 
Profound ennui at once overcame him, while Marianne, 
in a happy frame of mind, on returning to Kayser’s 
studio, reviewed the incidents of that evening, recalling 
Vaudrey’s restless smile, and seeming again to hear 


PART FIRST 


*57 

Rosas’s confidences, while she thought : “ He spoke to 
me of the past almost in the same terms as Lissac. Is 
human nature at the bottom merely commonplace, that 
two men of entirely different characters make almost 
identical confessions?” While she was recalling that 
passionate moment, the duke was experiencing a feeling 
of disappointment because of their interrupted conversa- 
tion, and he reproached himself for not having followed 
Marianne, for having allowed her to escape without 
telling her — 

But what had he to tell her? 

He had said everything. He had entirely surren- 
dered, had opened his soul, as transparent as crystal. 
And this notwithstanding that he had vowed in past 
days that he would keep his secret locked within him. 
He had smothered his love under his frigid Castilian 
demeanor. And now, suddenly, like a child, on the 
first chance meeting with that woman, he had allowed 
himself to be drawn into a confession that he had been 
rigidly withholding ! 

Ah ! it was because he loved her, and had always 
loved her. There was only one woman in the whole 
world for him, — this one. He did not lie. Marianne’s 
smile haunted him, wherever he was. In her glance 
was a poison that he had drunk, which set his blood on 
fire. He was hers. Except for the image of Lissac, 
he would most certainly have returned long since to Paris 
to seek Mademoiselle Kayser. 


i 5 8 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

But Lissac was there. He recalled how much Guy 
had loved her. He had more than once made the 
third in their company. He had often accompanied 
Lissac to Marianne’s door. How then had she dared 
to say just now that she had never been his mis- 
tress ? 

But how was he to believe her? 

And why, after all, should she have lied ? What 
interest had she? — 

In proportion as Rosas considered the matter, he grew 
more angry with himself, and in the very midst of the 
crowd, he was seized with a violent attack of frenzy, such 
as at times suddenly determined him to seek absolute 
solitude. He was eager to escape. 

In order to avoid Madame Marsy, who was perhaps 
seeking him, he slipped through the groups of people 
and reached the door without being seen, leaving without 
formal salutation, as the English do. 

He was in the hall, putting on his overcoat, while a 
servant turned up its otter-fur collar, when he heard 
Guy say : 

“ You are going, my dear duke ? Shall we bear each 
other company? ” 

The idea was not distasteful to Rosas. Involuntarily, 
perhaps, he thought that a conversation with Lissac was, 
in some way, a chat with Marianne. These two beings 
were coupled in his recollections and preoccupations and 
then he really liked Guy. The Parisian was the com- 


PART FIRST 


*59 

plement of the Castilian. They had so many reminis- 
cences in common : fetes, suppers, sorrows, Parisian 
sadnesses, girls who sobbed to the measure of a waltz. 
Then they had not seen each other for so long. 

Rosas experienced a certain degree of pleasure in 
finding himself once more on the boulevard with Guy. 
It made him feel young again. Every whiff of smoke 
that ascended from his cigar in the fresh air, seemed 
to breathe so many exhalations of youth. They had 
formerly ground out so many paradoxes as they 
strolled thus arm in arm, taking their recreation through 
Paris. 

In a very little time, and after the exchange of a few 
words, they had bridged the long gap of years, of travel 
and separation. They expressed so much in so few 
words. Rosas, as if invincibly attracted by the name 
of Marianne, was the first to pronounce it, while Guy 
listened with an impassive air to the duke’s interro- 
gations. 

In this way they went toward the boulevard, along 
which the rows of gas-jets flamed like some grand illu- 
mination. 

“ Paris ! ” said Rosas, “has a singular effect on one. 
It resumes its dominion over one at once on seeing it 
again, and it seems as if one had never left it. I have 
hardly unpacked my trunks when here I am again trans- 
formed into a Parisian.” 

“ Paris is like absinthe ! ” said Guy. “ As soon as 


i6o 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


one uncorks the bottle, one commences to drink it 
again.” 

“ Absinthe ! there you are indeed, you Frenchmen, 
who everlastingly calumniate your country. What an 
idea, comparing Paris with absinthe ! ” 

“ A Parisian’s idea, parbleu / You have not been 
here two days and you are already intoxicated with 
Parisine , you said so yourself. The hasheesh of the 
boulevard.” 

“ Perhaps it is not Parisine only that has, in fact, af- 
fected my brain,” said Rosas. 

“ No doubt, it is also the Paiisienne. Madame Marsy 
is very pretty.” 

“ Charming,” said Rosas coldly. 

“ Less charming than Mademoiselle Kayser ! ” 

Guy sent a whiff of smoke from his cigar floating on 
the night breeze, while awaiting the duke’s reply; but 
Jose pursued his way beside his friend, without uttering 
a word, as if he were suddenly absorbed, and Lissac, 
who had allowed the conversation to lapse, sought to re- 
open it : “ Then,” he said suddenly, — dropping the name 
of Mademoiselle Kayser : — “You will be in Paris for some 
time, Rosas ? ” 

“ I do not in the least know.” 

“ You will not, I hope, set out again for the East ? ” 
“ Oh ! you know what a strange fellow I am. It won’t 
do to challenge me to ! ” 

Lissac laughed. 


PART FIRST 


161 


“ I don’t challenge you at all, I only ask you not to 
leave the fortifications hereafter. We shall gain every- 
thing. You are not a Spaniard, you are a born Parisian, 
as I have already told you a hundred times. If I 
were in your place, I would set myself up here and stick 
to Paris. Since it is the best place in the world, why 
look for another ? ” 

“ My dear Guy,” interrupted the duke, who had not 
listened, “ will you promise to answer me, with all frank- 
ness, a delicate, an absurd question, if you will, one of 
those questions that is not generally put, but which I 
am going to ask you, nevertheless, without preface, 
point-blank ? ” 

“ To it and to any others that you put me, my dear 
duke, I will answer as an honest man and a friend 
should.” 

“ Have you been much in love with Mademoiselle 
Kayser ? ” 

“ Very much.” 

“ And has she loved you — a little ? ” 

“ Not at all.” 

“That is not what she has just told me.” 

“ Ah ! ” said Lissac, as he threw away his cigar. “ You 
spoke of me, then ? ” 

“ She told me that she believed she loved you sin- 
cerely.” 

“ That is just what I had the pleasure of telling you.” 

“ And — Marianne ? — ” . . 


162 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ Marianne ? ” repeated Lissac, who perfectly under- 
stood the question from De Rosas’s hesitation. 

“ My dear friend, when a man feels sufficiently anx- 
ious, or sufficiently weak, or sufficiently smitten, which- 
ever you please, to stake his life on the throw of the 
dice, he is permitted to put one of those misplaced 
questions to which I have just referred. Well ! you can 
tell me what, perhaps, none other than I would dare to 
ask you : Have you been Marianne’s lover ? ” 

Before replying, Guy took the arm of the duke in a 
friendly way, and, leaning upon it, felt that it trembled 
nervously. Then, touching his hand by chance, he ob- 
served that Rosas was in a burning fever. 

“ My dear fellow, it is the everlasting question of 
honor between men and of duty to a woman that you 
put before me. Had I been Marianne’s lover, I should be 
bound to tell you that Marianne had never been my 
mistress. These falsehoods are necessary. No; I have 
not been Marianne’s lover, but I advise you, if you do 
not wish to be perfectly miserable, not to seek to be- 
come so. You are one of those men who throw their 
hearts open as wide as a gateway. She is a calculating 
creature, who pursues, madly enough I admit, without 
consistency or constancy in her ideas, any plan that she 
may have in view. She might be flattered to have you 
as a suitor, as I was, or as a lover, as I have been as- 
sured others were. I do not affirm this, remember ; but 
she will never be moved by your affection. She is a pure 


PART FIRST j6 3 

Parisian, and is incapable of loving you as you deserve, 
but you could not deceive her, as they say she has 
been.” 

“ Deceived ? ” asked Rosas, in a tone of pity that 
struck Lissac. 

“ Deceived ! yes ! deceit is the complementary school 
of love.” 

“ Then — if I loved Marianne ? ” asked Rosas. 

“ I would advise you to tell it to her at first, and prove 
it afterward, and finally to catalogue it in that album 
whose ashes are sprinkled at the bottom of the marriage 
gifts.” 

“ You speak of Mademoiselle Kayser as you would 
speak of a courtesan,” said the duke, in a choking voice. 

“Ah! I give you my word,” said Lissac, “that I 
should speak very differently of Mademoiselle Alice 
Aubry, or of Mademoiselle Cora Touchard. I would say 
to you quite frankly : They are pretty creatures ; there 
is no danger.” 

“ And Marianne, on the contrary, is dangerous.” 

“ Oh ! perfectly, for you.” 

“ And why is she not dangerous for you? ” 

“ Why, simply, my dear duke, because I am satisfied 
to love her as you have hitherto done and because I had, 
as I told you, the good fortune not to be her lover.” 

“ But you brought her to Madame Marsy’s this even- 
ing?” 

“ Oh ! her uncle accompanied us, but I was there.” 


164 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

“ You offer your arm then to a woman whom, as you 
have just told me, you consider dangerous? ” 

“ Not for Sabine ! — and then, that is a drop of the 
absinthe, a little of the hasheesh of which I spoke to 
you. One sees only concessions in Paris, and even when 
one is dead, one needs a further concession, but in per- 
petuity. One only becomes one’s self” — and Guy’s 
jesting tone became serious, — “ when a worthy fellow 
like you puts one a question that seems terribly like 
asking advice. Then one answers him, as I have just 
answered you, and cries out to him : * Beware ! ’ ” 

“ I thank you,” said Rosas, suddenly stopping short 
on the pavement. “You treat me like a true friend.” 

“ And if I seem to you to be too severe,” added Lissac, 
smiling, “ charge that to the account of bitterness. A 
man that has loved a woman is never altogether just 
toward her. If he has ceased to love her, he slights 
her, if he still loves her, he slanders her. I have per- 
haps, traduced Marianne, but I have not slighted you, 
that is certain. Now, take advantage of this gossip. 
But when? ” 

“ I don’t know,” replied the duke. “ I will write you. 
I shall perhaps leave Paris !” 

“ What is that? ” 

“ Just what I say.” 

“The deuce!” said Lissac. “Do you know that if 
you were to fly from the danger in question, I should be 
very uneasy? It would be very serious.” 


PART FIRST 


165 

“ That would not be a flight. At the most, a caprice,’ ' 
the duke replied. 

They separated, less pleased with each other than 
they were at the commencement of their interview. 
Lissac felt that in some fashion or other, he had wounded 
Rosas even in adopting the flippant tone of the lounger, 
without any malice, and the Spaniard with his somewhat 
morose nature, retired within himself, almost gloomy, 
and reproached Guy for the first time for smiling or jest- 
ing on so serious a matter. 

Discontented with himself, he entered his house. His 
servant was waiting for him. He brought him a blue 
envelope on a card-tray. 

“ A telegram for monsieur le due.” 

Rosas tore it open in a mechanical way. It was from 
one of his London friends, Lord Lindsay, who having 
learned of Rosas’s return, sent him a pressing invitation. 
If he did not hasten to Paris to welcome him, it was 
simply because grave political affairs demanded his pres- 
ence in London. 

The duke, while taking off his gloves, looked at the 
crumpled despatch lying under the lamp. He was, like 
most travellers, superstitious. Perhaps this despatch had 
arrived in the nick of time to prevent him from commit- 
ting some act of folly. 

But what folly? 

He still felt Marianne’s kiss on his lips, burning like 
ice. To-morrow, — in a few hours, — his first . thought, 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


1 66 

his only thought would be to find that woman again, to 
experience that voluptuous impression, that dream that 
had penetrated his heart. A danger, Lissac had said. 
The feline eyes of Marianne had a dangerous ardor ; but 
it was their charm, their strength and their adorable 
seductiveness, that filtered like a flame through her long, 
fair lashes. 

He closed his eyes to picture Mademoiselle Kayser, 
to inhale the atmosphere, to enjoy something of the 
perfume surrounding her. 

A danger ! 

Guy was perhaps right. The best love is that which 
is never gathered, which remains immature, like a blos- 
som in spring that never becomes a fruit. Lord Lind- 
say’s despatch arrived seasonably. It was a chance or a 
warning. 

In any case, what would Rosas risk by passing a few 
days in London, and losing the burning of that kiss? 
The sea-breezes would perhaps efface it. 

“ I am certainly feverish,” the duke thought. “It 
was assuredly necessary to speak to Lissac. It was also 
necessary to speak to her,” he added, in a dissatisfied, 
anxious, almost angry tone. 

A danger ! 

Lissac had acted imprudently in uttering that word, 
which addressed to such a man as Rosas, had something 
alluring about it. What irritated the duke was Guy’s 
reply, asserting that he had not been Marianne’s lover, 


PART FIRST 167 

but that Marianne had had other lovers. Others? What 
did Lissac know of this? A species of jealous frenzy 
was blended with the feverish desire that Marianne’s 
kiss had injected into Rosas’s veins. He would have 
liked to know the truth, to see Marianne again, to urge 
Guy to further confidences. And, then, he felt that he 
would rather not have come, not have seen her again, 
not have gone to Sabine’s. 

“ Well, so be it ! Lord Lindsay is right, I will go.” 

The following morning, Guy de Lissac found in his 
mail a brief note, sealed with the arms of the duke, with 
the motto : Hasta la muerte . 

Jos£ wrote to him as he was leaving Paris : 

“ You are perhaps right. I am a little intoxicated with Pari - 
sine. I am going to London to visit a friend and if I ever re- 
count my voyages there, it will only be to the serious-minded 
members of the Geographical Society, There, at least, there is 
no £ danger.’ With many thanks and until we meet again. 

“ Your friend, 

“J. DE R 

“ Plague on it,” said Lissac, who read the letter three 
times, “ but our dear duke is badly bitten ! Ohime f 
Marianne Kayser has had a firm and sure tooth this 
time ! — We shall see ! — ” he added, as he broke the seal 
of another letter, containing a request for a loan on the 
part of someone richer than himself. 


i68 


HIS EXCECLENCY THE MINISTER 


VII. 

The soiree at Sabine Marsy’s had caused Vaudrey to 
feel something like the enervation that follows intoxica- 
tion. The next morning he awoke with his head heavy, 
after a night of feverish sleep, interrupted by sudden 
starts, wherein he saw that pretty, fair girl standing be- 
fore him devouring sherbet and smiling gayly. 

Every morning since he had been at the ministry, 
Sulpice had experienced a joyous sensation at finding 
himself again on his feet and rejoicing in life. He paced 
about his apartments, feeling a sort of physical delight, 
opening his window and looking out on the common- 
place garden through which so many ministers had passed 
and which he called, as so many before him had done : 
My garden . His thoughts took him back then to that 
little convent garden at Grenoble. What a distance 
he had travelled since then ! and how good it was to 
live ! 

That morning, on the contrary, the black and bare 
trees in the garden appeared to him to be very gloomy. 
He felt morose. He had been awakened early so that 
the despatches from the provinces might be laid before 
him. The information in them was quite insignificant. 
But then his spirit was not present. Once again he was 


PART FIRST 169 

at Sabine’s, beside Marianne, so lovely in her sky-blue 
gown, and with her wavy locks. 

If he had been free, he would have gladly sought the 
opportunity to see that woman again as soon as the 
morning commenced. He felt a kind of infantile joy 
in being thus perturbed and haunted. It seemed to him 
that this emotion made him feel younger. Formerly, 
on awakening, the dream of the night had followed him 
like some intoxication. 

Formerly ! but “ formerly ” he was not the important 
man, the distinguished personage of to-day. — He had 
not the charge of power as some others have the charge 6f 
souls. A minister has something else to do than to be 
under the sway of a vision. Sulpice dressed hurriedly, 
went down to his office, where a huge log-fire flamed 
behind an antique screen. He sat down in front of his 
large mahogany bureau, covered with papers, and on which 
was lying a huge black portfolio stuffed with documents 
bearing this title in stamped letters : Monsieur le Min- 
is tre de r Interieur. In the centre of the bureau had 
been placed a leather portfolio filled with sheets of paper 
bearing the title : Documents to be signed by Monsieur 
le Minis tre. Beside this were spread out various reports, 
bearing upon one corner of the sheet a printed headline : 
Office of the Prefect of Police and Director- General of 
the Press. 

Vaudrey settled down in his chair with the profound 
satisfaction of a man who has not grown weary of art 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


170 

acquired possession. This huge salon with its blackened 
pictures, cold marbles, and large, severe-looking book- 
cases, presented a sober bourgeois harmony that pleased 
him. It was like the salon of a well-to-do notary, with 
its tall windows overlooking the courtyard, already full 
of the shadows of importunate callers and favor seekers 
whom the secretary-general received in a room ad- 
joining the ministerial cabinet. The minister inhaled 
once more the atmosphere of his new domicile before 
settling down to work. Every morning it was his custom 
to read the reports of the Director of the Press and of 
the Prefect of Police before all else. 

He took up the report of the Prefect. Nothing se- 
rious. A slight accident on the Vincennes line near the 
fortifications of Paris. A train derailed. A few injured. 
In the Passage de l’Op£ra, the previous evening, the 
early speech of the Minister of the Interior upon general 
policy, and that of the Finance Minister, who was to 
reply to the rumor, falsely or prematurely announcing the 
conversion of the five per cents, had caused an upward 
movement in value. All was satisfactory, all was quiet. 
The new minister enjoyed public confidence. Perfect. 

Sulpice was delighted and passed on to the report of 
the Director of the Press. Except a small number of 
disgruntled and irreconcilable party journals, all the 
French and foreign papers warmly praised and supported 
the newly-created ministry. The Times declared that 
the coalition perfectly met the requirements of the 


PART FIRST 


171 

existing situation. The Berlin papers did not take 
umbrage at it, although Monsieur Vaudrey had more 
than once declared his militant patriotism from the 
tribune. “ In short,” the daily report concluded, “ there 
is a concert of praise, and public opinion is delighted to 
have finally secured a legitimate satisfaction through 
the choice of a homogeneous ministry, such as has long 
been desired.” 

“What strange literature,” muttered Sulpice, almost 
audibly, as he threw the report with the other docu- 
ments. 

He recalled how, on that morning when Sulpice Vau- 
drey sat there for the first time, the morning following 
Pichereau’s sudden dismissal from office, the editor of 
this daily press bulletin, like an automaton, mechan- 
ically and indifferently laid on the table of the minister 
a report wherein he said in full : 

“ Public opinion, by the mouth of the accepted jour- 
nals, has for too long a time reposed confidence in the 
Pichereau administration, for the ministry to be troubled 
about the approaching and useless interpellation an- 
nounced some days ago by Monsieur Vaudrey — of 
Isere — .” 

And it was to Vaudrey, the elected successor of Piche- 
reau, that the report was handed naturally and as was due. 

“ The compilers of these little chronicles are very op- 
timistic,” thought Sulpice. “After all, probably, it is 
the office that is responsible for this, as, doubtless, min- 


172 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


isters do not like to know the truth. I will see, however, 
that I get it.” 

He had, this time, a burdensome morning. Prefects 
were arriving by the main entrance to the ministry, the 
vast antechambers on the left ; and friends, more intimate 
suitors, waited on the right, elbowing the ushers, in order 
to have their cards handed to the secretary-general or to 
the minister. There were some who, in an airy sort of 
way, said : “ Monsieur Vaudrey,” in order to appear to be 
on familiar terms. 

Sulpice felt himself attacked on both sides at once ; 
blockaded in his office ; and he despatched the petition- 
ers with all haste, extending his hand to them, smiling, 
cheerfully making them promises, happy to promise 
them, but grieved in principle to see humbug depicted 
on the human face. From time to time, in the midst 
of his ministerial preoccupations and conversations, the 
disturbing smile of Marianne suddenly appeared like a 
flash of lightning in a storm ; and though shaking his 
head, to give the appearance of listening and understand- 
ing, the minister was in reality far away, near a brilliant 
nbffet and watching a silver spoon glide, between two rosy 
lips. 

In that procession, which was to be a daily one, of 
petitioners, of deputies urging appointments in favor of 
their constituents, asking the removal of mayors, the dec- 
oration of election agents, harassing the minister with 
recommendations and petitions which, although couched 


PART FIRST 


r 73 

in a humble tone, always veiled a threat, Vaudrey did not 
often have to do with his friends. It was a weari- 
some succession of lukewarm friends or recognized 
enemies, who rallied around a successful man. This 
man, although a minister for so short a time, had already 
a vague, disquieting impression that the administration 
was the property of a great number of clients, always the 
same, frequenters of these corridors, guests in these ante- 
chambers, well known to the ushers, and who, whoever 
the minister might be, had the same access and the same 
influence with the ministry. 

There were some whom the clerks saluted in a famil- 
iar way, as if they were old acquaintances : intrepid 
office-seekers, unmoved by any changes in ministerial 
combinations. Such entered Vaudrey’s cabinet in a de- 
liberate, familiar manner, and as if feeling at home. Sul- 
pice had once heard one of them greet an usher by his 
first name : “Good-morning, Gustave.” 

The minister asked Gustave : “ Who is that gentle- 
man ? ” The usher replied, with a tinge of respect in 
his tone : “ It is one of our visitors, Monsieur le Ministre, 
Monsieur Eugene Renaudin. We call him only Mon- 
sieur Eugene. We have known him a long time.” 

This “ Monsieur Eugene ” had already petitioned for 
a prefecture, or a sub-prefecture, or — it mattered little 
— whatever place the minister might choose to give 
him. 

His claims ? None : he was an office-seeker. 


174 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


The minister was already overwhelmed by this vulgar 
procession of petitioners and intermediaries, when an 
usher brought him a card bearing this name : Lucien 
Granet. 

In the Chamber it was thought that Granet did not 
like Vaudrey too well, and Sulpice vaguely scented in 
him a candidate for his office. The more reason, then, 
that he should make himself agreeable. 

“What does he want ?” the minister thought. 

This Granet was, moreover, a typical politician ; by the 
side of the minister of to-day, he was the inevitable min- 
ister of to-morrow, the positive reformer, the man 
appointed to cleanse the Augean stables, whose coming, 
it was said, would immediately mark the end of all 
abuses, great and small. 

“Ah ! when Granet is minister ! ” 

The artist without a commission consoled himself with 
the prospect of the Granet ministry. He would deco- 
rate the monuments when Granet became minister. The 
actress who looked with longing eyes toward the Com£die 
Frangaise, and dreamed of playing in Moli£re, had her 
hopes centered in Granet. Granet promised to every 
actress an engagement at the Rue de Richelieu. Iam 
waiting for the Granet ministry / was the consolatory 
reflection, interrupted by sighs, of the licentiates in law. 
Meanwhile those office-seekers danced attendance on 
Granet, and their smile was worth to the future Excel- 
lency all the sweets of office. 


PART FIRST 


I 7S 

Granet had thus everywhere a host of clients, women 
and men, sighing for his success, working to bring about 
his ministry, intriguing in advance for his advent, and 
working together for his glory. 

“ Ah ! if Granet were in power ! ” 

“ Such abuses would not exist under a Granet min- 
istry ! ” 

“ All will be changed when Granet becomes minister ! ” 

“ That dear Granet ! that good Granet ! Long live 
Granet ! ” 

Vaudrey was not ignorant of the fact that for some 
time past, Lucien Granet had been manoeuvring for his 
appointment to any office whatever, the most important 
obtainable. He was within an ace of becoming a mem- 
ber of the last Ministerial Coalition. He might have 
been Vaudrey’s colleague instead of his rival. Sulpice 
was as glad to have him as an opponent in the Chamber 
as a colleague in the ministerial council. He was, how- 
ever, not an adversary to be trifled with. Granet was a 
power in himself. 

“Well!” said the minister to Granet, who entered 
smiling, and with a very polite greeting, “ you come then 
to inspect your future office? Already ! — ” 

“I? ” said Granet, who did his best to be agreeable, 
“ God prevent me from thinking of this department. It 
is too well filled.” 

“ That is very gallant, my dear Granet.” 

“ Far from disputing your portfolio, I come, on the 


176 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

contrary, to give you some advice as to strengthening 
your already excellent position.” 

“ Advice from you, my dear colleague, should be 
excellent. Let us hear it.” 

“ My dear minister, it is about the appointment of an 
Under Secretary of State for the Interior. Well ! I 
have come to urge the claims of my friend, our colleague 
Warcolier.” 

While speaking, Granet, who was seated near the 
bureau of the minister, with his hat on his knee, was 
watching Vaudrey through his eyeglass ; he saw that 
his lips twitched slightly as he hesitated before reply- 
ing. 

“ But I am bound to Jacquier — of l’Oise,” Vaudrey 
said abruptly. 

Granet smiled. Certainly Jacquier would be a most 
excellent choice. He was a cool, solid and remarkable 
man. But he had little influence with the Chamber, 
frequented society rarely, was morose and exclusive, 
while Warcolier was a most amiable man, an excellent 
speaker and one who was well-known in the Chamber. 
He was a fine orator. He was highly esteemed by the 
Granet group. 

“ My personal friend, too, my dear minister. You 
would, I assure you, displease me if you did not support 
Warcolier this morning at the Ministerial Council, at 
which the nomination of under secretaries should take 
place. It is this morning, isn’t it?” 


PART FIRST 


T 77 


“ Certainly, in an hour’s time.” 

Granet left the minister, repeating with considerable 
emphasis, which Vaudrey could not fail to remark, that 
the nomination of Warcolier would be favorably viewed 
by the majority of the deputies. A hundred times more 
so than that of Jacquier — of l’Oise. 

“Jacquier is a bear. They don’t like bears,” said 
Granet, tapping his thumb lightly with his eyeglass. 

He left Vaudrey out of humor, and very much dis- 
gusted at finding that Warcolier had already exploited 
the field. 

In truth, Vaudrey liked Warcolier as little as he did 
Granet. Warcolier took life easily. He was naturally 
of a contented disposition. He liked people who were 
easily pleased. An Imperialist under the Empire, he 
was now a Republican under the Republic. Epicurean 
in his tastes, he was agreeable, clever and fond of enjoy- 
ment, and he approved of everything that went the way 
he desired. He sniffed the breeze light-heartedly and 
allowed it to swell his sail and his self-love. He did not 
like ill-tempered people, people who frowned or were 
discontented or gloomy. Having a good digestion, he 
could not understand the possibility of disordered 
stomachs. A free-liver, he could not realize that hungry 
people should ever think of better food. Everything 
was good ; everything was right ; everything was beauti- 
ful. Of an admirably tranquil disposition, he felt neither 

anger nor envy. Thinking himself superior to every one 
12 


178 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

else, Warcolier never made comparisons, he did not even 
prefer himself : he worshipped himself. The world be- 
longed to him, he trod the ground with a firm step, 
swinging his arms, his paunch smooth, his head erect 
and his shoulders thrown forward. He seemed to in- 
hale, at every step, the odor of triumph. He was not 
the man to compromise with a defeated adversary. 

Of Warcolier’s literary efforts, people were familiar with 
his History of Work and Workers that he had formerly 
dedicated to His Majesty Napoleon III. in these 
flattering terms : “ To you, sire, who have substituted 
for the nobility of birth, that of work, and for the 
pride of ancestry, that of shedding blood for one’s 
country.” 

Later, in 1875, Warcolier had re-issued his History of 
Work and his dedication was anxiously awaited. It did 
not take him long to get over the difficulty. He dedi- 
cated his work to another sovereign : “ To the People, 
who have substituted the nobility of work for that of 
birth, and that of blood shed for the country for that of 
blood shed by ancestors.” 

And that very name which was formerly read at the 
foot of professions of faith : — Appeal to Honest People . 
The Revolution overwhelms us / is now found at the 
foot of proclamations wherein this devil of a Warcolier 
exclaims : — Appeal to Good Citizens. Reaction now 
threatens us ! 

This was the man whom Granet and his friends had 


PART FIRST 


*79 

worked so hard to thrust into the position of Under- 
secretary of State of the Interior. Vaudrey reserved his 
opinion on this subject to be communicated to the Presi- 
dent by and by. 

The hour for the meeting of the Council drew near. 
Sulpice saw, through the white curtains of the window, 
his horses harnessed to his coup£ and prancing in the 
courtyard, although it was but a short distance from 
Place Beauvau to the £lys£e. He slipped the reports 
of the Prefect of Police and the Director of the Press 
into his portfolio and was about to leave, when the usher 
brought him another card. 

“ It is useless, I cannot see any one else.” 

“ But the gentleman said that if the minister saw his 
name, he would most assuredly see him.” 

Vaudrey took the card that was extended to him on 
the tray : 

“J£liotte! He is right. Show him in.” 

He removed his hat and went straight toward the 
door, that was then opened to admit a pale-faced, lean 
man with long black whiskers that formed a sort of horse- 
tail fringe to his face. J£liottewas a former comrade in 
the law courts, an advocate in the Court of Appeal, and 
he entered, bowing ceremoniously to Sulpice, who with 
a pleased face and outstretched hands, went to welcome 
the old companion of his youth. 

J^liotte bowed with a certain affectation of respect, 
and smiled nervously. 


l8o HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

“ How happy I am to see you,” Vaudrey said. 

“ You still address me in the old familiar way,” J6- 
liotte answered, showing his slightly broken and yellow 
teeth. 

“ What an idea ! Have I forfeited your good opin- 
ion, that I should abandon our familiar form of ad- 
dress? ” 

“ Honors, then, have not changed you ; well ! so much 
the better,” said J£liotte. “You ask me how I am? 
Oh ! always the same ! — I work hard — I am out of your 
sight — but I applaud all your successes.” 

While J^liotte was speaking of Vaudrey’ s successes, 
he sat on the edge of a chair, staring at his hat, and 
wagging his jaw as if he were cracking a nut between his 
frail teeth. 

“ I have been delighted at your getting into the cabi- 
net. Delighted for your sake — ” 

“ You ought also to be delighted on your ow r n account, 
my good J£liotte. Whatever I may hereafter be able to 
do — ” 

J&iotte cut the minister short and said in a tone as 
dry as tinder : 

“ Oh ! my dear Sulpice, believe one thing, — that I 
ask you nothing.” 

“Why?” 

“Because — no, nothing. And I repeat, nothing.” 

“ And you would be wrong if I could be friendly to 
you or useful.” 


PART FIRST 


181 


“ I have said nothing, and I stick to nothing. You 
will meet quite enough office-seekers in your career — ” 
“ Evidently ! ” 

“ Petitioners also ! ” 

“ Most assuredly ! ” 

“ Well ! I am neither a petitioner nor an office-seeker 
nor a sycophant. I am your friend.” 

“ And you are right, for I have great affection for 
you.” 

“ I am your friend and your devoted friend. I should 
consider it a rascally thing to ask you for anything. A 
rascally thing, I say ! You are in office, you are a 
minister, so much the better, yes, so much the better ! 
But, at least, don’t let your friends pester you, like ver- 
min crawling before you, because you are all-powerful. 
I will never crawl before you, I warn you. I shall re- 
main just what I am. You will take me just as I am or 
not at all. That will depend altogether upon the change of 
humor that the acquisition of honors may produce in 
you — ” 

“ Jeliotte ! we shall see, J&iotte ! ” 

“ Well ! You can take me or leave me. And as I do 
not wish to be confounded with the cringing valets who 
crowd your antechambers — ” 

“ You crowd nothing, you will not dance attendance. 
Have I asked you to dance attendance? ” 

“ No, not yet — I called simply to see if I should be 
received. Yes, it is merely in the nature of an experi- 


182 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


ment — it is made. It is to your honor, I admit, 
but I will not repeat it — I shall disappear. It is more 
simple. Yes, I have told you and I was determined to 
tell you that you will never see me, so long as you are a 
minister.” 

“Ah! J^liotte ! J£liotte ! ” 

“ Never — not until you have fallen — For one always 
falls—” 

“ Fortunately,” said Sulpice, with a laugh. 

“ Fortunately or unfortunately, that depends. I say : 
when you have fallen — then, oh ! then, don’t fear, I will 
not be the one to turn my back on you — ” 

“You are very kind.” 

“ Whatever you may have said or done, you under- 
stand, while you are in power — and power intoxicates 
men ! — I will always offer you my hand. Yes, this 
hand shall always be extended to you. You will find 
plenty of people who will turn their backs on you at 
that moment. Not I ! I am a friend in dark days — ” 

“That is understood.” 

“ I will leave you to your glory, Vaudrey. I crave 
pardon for not styling you : Monsieur le Ministre ; I 
could not. It is not familiar to me. I cannot help it. 
I am not the friend for the hour of success, but for that 
of misfortune.” 

“ And you will return? ” 

“When you are overthrown ! — ” 

“ Thank you ! ” 


PART FIRST 


183 

“ That is like me ! I love my friends.” 

“When they are down ! ” said Sulpice. 

“That is so ! ” exclaimed J^liotte. 

“ And is that all you had to say to me?” the minister 
asked. 

“Is not that enough? ” 

“Yes ! yes ! Au revoir , J£liotte.” 

“ Au revoir ! Till — you know when.” 

“Yes. When I feel my position threatened, I will 
call upon you. Don’t be afraid. That time will come.” 

“ The idiot ! ” said Sulpice, angrily shrugging his 
shoulders, when the advocate was gone. 

He snatched his hat and went out hurriedly to his 
carriage, the messengers rising to bow to him as he passed 
through the antechamber. 

It was hardly necessary for him to order his coachman 
to drive to the Elys£e. The duties of each day were so 
well ordered in advance, and besides, the attendants at 
the department knew quite as well as the minister if a 
Council was to be held at the £lysee. 

Sulpice was somewhat upset. J£liotte’s visit, following 
that of Granet, presented the human species in an evil 
aspect. He had never felt envious of any one, and it 
seemed to him that the whole world should be gratified 
at his modest bearing under success. 

“ For, after all, I triumph, that is certain ! — That 
animal of a Jeliotte is not such a simpleton ! — There are 
many who, if they were in my place, would swagger ! ” 


184 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

So he complacently awarded himself a patent of mod- 
esty. 

The carriage stopped at the foot of the steps of the 
Elysee. Sulpice always felt an exquisite joy in alighting 
from his carriage, his portfolio pressed to his side, and 
leaping over the carpet-covered steps of the stone stair- 
case leading to the Council Chambers. He passed 
through them, as he did everywhere, between rows of 
spectators who respectfully bowed to him. Devoted 
friends extended their hands respectfully toward his 
overcoat. Certainly, he only knew the men by their 
heads, bald or crowned with locks, as the case might be. 
His colleagues were gathered together, awaiting him, 
and chatting in the salon, decorated in white and gold, 
the invariable salon of official apartments with the in- 
evitable Sevres vases with deep-blue, light-green or buff 
color grounds, placed upon consoles or pedestals. The 
portfolios appeared stuffed or empty, limp or bursting 
with paper bundles, under the arms of their Excellencies. 
Suddenly a door was opened, the ushers fell back and 
the President approached, looking very serious and taking 
his accustomed place opposite to the President of the 
Council with the formality of an orderly, the Minister of 
the Interior on the left of the President of the Republic, 
with the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the right. 

Then, in turn, each minister, beginning at the right, 
reported the business of his department, sometimes 
debated in private council. Each having completed his 


PART FIRST 185 

information, bowed to his neighbor on the right, and 
said : 

“ I have finished. It is your turn, my dear colleague.” 

The President listened. Sulpice sometimes allowed 
himself to muse while seated at this green-covered table, 
forgetting altogether the affairs under consideration. 
Sometimes he recalled those green-covered tables of the 
Council Chambers of the Grenoble Prefecture, finding 
that this Ministerial Council recalled the mean impression 
invoked by his provincial recollections, at other times, 
a vein of poesy would flit across his mind, or an eloquent 
word would reach his ear, suggesting to him the thought 
that, after all, these men seated there before their open 
portfolios, turning over or scattering about the papers, 
nevertheless represented cherished France and held in 
their leather pouches the secrets, the destinies, aye, even 
the very fate of the fatherland. 

And this Sulpice, overjoyed to expand at his ease in 
the delights of power, sitting there in his accustomed 
chair, — a chair which now seemed to be really his own- 
enjoying a sort of physical satisfaction ever new, inhaling 
power like the fumes of a nargileh, forgot himself, how- 
ever, and suddenly felt himself recalled to the urgent 
reality when his colleague, the Minister of War, a spare 
man with a grizzled moustache, dropped an infrequent 
remark in which, in the laconic speech of a soldier, could 
be comprehended some cause of anxiety or of hope. 
Sulpice listened then, more moved than he was willing 


i8 6 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


to have it appear, trying, in his turn, to hide all his 
artistic and patriotic anxieties under that firm exterior 
which his colleague of the Department of Foreign Affairs 
wore, a dull-eyed, listless face, and cheeks that might be 
made of pasteboard. 

The business of the Council was of little importance 
that morning. The Keeper of the Seals, Monsieur 
Collard — of Nantes — a fat, puffing, apoplectic man with 
somewhat glassy, round eyes, proposed to the President, 
who listened attentively but without replying, some re- 
form to which Vaudrey was perfectly indifferent. He 
did not even hear his colleague’s dull speech, the latter 
lost himself in useless considerations, while the Minister 
of War looked at him, as if his eyes, loaded with grape- 
shot said, in military fashion : “ Sacrebleu / get done ! ” 

Vaudrey looked out of the window at the dark horizon 
of the wdnter sky and the gray tints of the leafless trees, 
and watched the little birds that chased one another 
among the branches. His thoughts were far, very far 
away from the table where the sober silence was broken 
by the interminable phrases of the Minister of Justice, 
whose words suggested the constant flow of an open 
spigot. 

The vision of a female form at the end of the garden 
appeared to him, a form that, notwithstanding the cold, 
was clothed in the soft blue gown that Marianne wore 
yesterday at Sabine’s. He seemed to catch that fleeting 
smile, the exact expression of which he sought to recall, 


PART FIRST 187 

that peculiar giance, cunning and enticing, that exquisite 
outline of a perfect Parisian woman. How charming 
she was ! And how sweet that name, Marianne ! 

Let us see indeed, what in reality could such a woman 
be ! Terrible, perhaps, but certainly irresistible ! 

Not for years had Vaudrey felt such an anxiety or 
allowed himself to be, as it were, carried away by such 
a dominating influence. Waking, he found Marianne 
the basis of all his thoughts, as she was during his 
slumber. 

And so charming ! 

“ Monsieur le Ministre de l’lnterieur is the next to 
address the Council.” 

Vaudrey had not noticed that Monsieur Collard — of 
Nantes — had finished his harangue, and that after the 
Minister of Justice, the Minister of Foreign Affairs had 
just concluded his remarks. Vaudrey, therefore, needed 
a moment’s reflection, a hasty self-examination to recog- 
nize his own personality : Monsiem * le Ministre de 
I* Interieur / This title only called up his ego after a 
momentary reflection, a sort of simulated astonishment 
under the cloak of a pensive attitude. Vaudrey’s col- 
leagues did not perceive that this man seated beside 
them was, as it were, lost in meditation. 

Sulpice, moreover, had little to say. Nothing serious. 
The confirmation of the favorable reports that had been 
made to him. Within a week he would finish his plan 
of prefectorial changes. He simply 'required the Coun- 


jS& HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

cil to deal at once with the nomination of the Under- 
secretaries of State. 

It was then that Vaudrey realized the extraordinary 
influence that Lucien Granet must possess. From the 
very opening of the discussion, the minister felt that his 
candidate, Jacquier — of l’Oise — was defeated in advance 
by Warcolier. Granet must have laid siege to the 
ministers one by one. The President was entirely in 
Warcolier’s favor. Warcolier’s amiability, tact, the ex- 
traordinary facility with which he threw overboard pre- 
vious opinions, were so many claims in his favor. It 
was necessary to give pledges to new converts, to 
prove that the government was not closed against peni- 
tents. 

“That is a very Christian theory,” said Vaudrey, 
“ and truly, I am neither in favor of jacobinism nor sus- 
picion, but there is something ironical in granting this 
amnesty to turncoats.” 

“ But it is decidedly politic,” said Monsieur Collard 
— of Nantes. 

“ It is a premium offered to the new converts.” 

“ Eh ! eh ! that is not so badly done ! ” 

Vaudrey knew perfectly well that it was useless to in- 
sist, he must put up with Warcolier. It was his task to 
manage matters so that this man should not have un- 
limited power in the ministry. 

Warcolier was elected and the President signed his 
appointment at the earliest possible moment. 


PART FIRST 


189 

“A nomination discounted in advance,” thought 
Vaudrey, who again recalled Granet’s polite but threat- 
ening smile. 

He felt somewhat nervous and annoyed at this result. 
But what could be done? To divert his thoughts, he 
listened to his colleagues’ communications. The Minis- 
ter of War commenced to speak, and in a tone of irritated 
surprise, instead of the lofty, patriotic considerations 
that Vaudrey expected of him, Vaudrey heard him mut- 
tering behind his moustache about soldiers’ cap-straps, 
shakos, gaiter-buttons, shoulder-straps, cloth and over- 
coats. That was all. It was the vulgar report of a 
shoemaker or a tailor, or of a contractor detailing the 
items of his account. 

Sulpice was anxious for the Council to be over. The 
President, before the close of the session, repeated, with 
all the seriousness of a judge of the Court of Appeal : 
“Above all, messieurs, no innovations, don’t try to do 
too well, let things alone. Don’t let us trouble about 
business ! Let us be content to live ! The session is 
ended.” 

“ Not about business? ” said Vaudrey to himself. 

He understood power in quite a different way. Long- 
ing for improvements, he did not understand how to let 
himself be dragged on like a cork upon a stream, by the 
wave of daily events. He was determined to put his 
ideas into force, to give life and durability to his minis- 
try. There was no use in being a minister if he must 


190 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

continue the habitual go-as-you-please of current politics. 
In that case, the first chief of bureau one might meet 
would make as good a minister as he. 

At the moment of leaving the Council Chamber, the 
Minister of War said to him, in a jocose, brusque way : 
“ Well ! my dear colleague, Warcolier’s election does 
not seem to have pleased you ? Bah ! if he has changed 
shoulders with his gun, that only proves that he knows 
how to drill.’ ’ 

And the soldier laughed heartily behind his closely 
buttoned frock coat. 

Vaudrey got into his carriage and returned to the 
ministry to breakfast. 

Formerly the breakfast hour was generally the time of 
joyous freedom for Sulpice. He felt soothed beside 
Adrienne and forgot his daily struggles. 

In their home on Chauss£e d’Antin, he usually aban- 
doned himself freely to lively and cheerful conversation, 
to allow his wife to find in him, the man of forty years, 
the fianc£, the young husband of former days. But 
here, before these exclusive domestics, the familiars of 
the ministry, planted around the table like so many 
inspectors, rather than servants, he dared not manifest 
himself. He scarcely spoke. He felt that he was 
watched and listened to. The valet who passed him 
the dishes watched over Monsieur le Ministre. He 
imagined that his attendants in their silent reflections 
compared the present minister with those that had gone 


PART FIRST 


191 

before him. On one occasion, one of the domestics 
replied to a remark made by Adrienne : “ Monsieur 
Pichereau, who preceded Monsieur le Ministre, and 
Monsieur le Comte d’Harville, who preceded Mon- 
sieur Pichereau, considered my service very proper, 
madame.” 

Adrienne accepted as well as she could, the necessities 
of her new position. Since that was power, let power 
rule ! She was resigned to those wastes whose luxury 
was apparent, since the political fortunes of her husband 
cast her there, like a prisoner, in that huge, common- 
place, ministerial mansion, wherein none of the joys of 
home or of that Parisian apartment that she had fur- 
nished with such refined taste, were left her, and she felt 
half lost in those vast, cold salons, cold in spite of their 
stoves and in which she felt, at one and the same time, 
only a temporary dweller, in the furnished house of pas- 
sage, with its defaced gilded ceilings and here and there 
a crack in the ceiling of that ancient Hotel Beauvau and 
those vulgar ornaments, those wearisome imitation Char- 
dins with their cracked colors and those old-fashioned 
pictures of Roqueplan, giving to everything at once one 
date , a bygone style. With what a truly melancholy 
smile Adrienne greeted the friends who came to see her 
on her reception day, when they remarked to her: 
" Why, you are in a palace ! ” 

“Yes, but I much prefer my accustomed furniture 
and my own house.” 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


192 

Sulpice, free at last from that Council and the 
morning receptions, as he alighted from his carriage, 
caused Madame to be informed that he had re- 
turned. 

Adrienne, who was looking pretty in a tight-fitting, 
black velvet gown, approached him with a smile and 
was suddenly overcome with sadness on seeing him ab- 
sorbed in thought. She dared not question him, but 
being somewhat anxious, she, nevertheless, inquired the 
cause of his frowning expression. 

“You have your bad look, my good Sulpice,” she 
smilingly said. 

He then quickly explained the Warcolier business. 

“ Is that all? Bah ! ” she said, “you will have many 
other such annoyances.” 

She was smiling graciously. 

“ That is politics ! — And then you like it — At least, 
confine your likes to that, Sulpice,” she said, drawing 
near to Vaudrey. 

She was about to present her forehead for his kiss, as 
formerly, but she drew back abruptly. A valet entered 
with a dignified air and ceremoniously announced that 
breakfast was served. 

Vaudrey ate without appetite. Adrienne watched him 
tenderly, her eyes were kind and gentle. How nervous 
he was and quickly disturbed ! Truly, Warcolier’s ap- 
pointment was not worth his giving himself the least 
anxiety about. 


PART FIRST 


J 93 


She was going to speak to him about it. Vaudrey 
imposed silence by a sign. The motionless domestics 
were listening. 

Like Sulpice, Adrienne suffered the annoyance of a 
constant surveillance. She was hungry when she sat 
down to table, but her appetite had vanished. The 
viands were served cold, brought on plates decorated 
with various designs and marked with the initials of 
Louis Philippe, L. P., intertwined, or with the monogram 
of the Empire, N. ; the gilt was worn off, the fillets of 
gold half obliterated : a service of Sevres that had been 
used everywhere, in imperial dwellings, national palaces, 
and was at last sent to the various ministries as the rem- 
nant of the tables of banished sovereigns. 

Instead of eating, Adrienne musingly looked at the 
decorations. It seemed to her that she was in a gloomy 
restaurant where the badly served dishes banished her 
appetite. Sulpice, sad himself, scarcely spoke and in 
mute preoccupation, in turn confused the shrewd, sly 
Granet, the intriguing Warcolier and Marianne Kayser, 
whose image never left him. He was discontented with 
himself and excited by the persistency with which the 
image of this woman haunted him. 

In vain did Adrienne smile and seek to divert him 
from the thoughts that besieged him — she was herself 
in a melancholy mood, without knowing why, and her 
endeavors were but wasted ; if he abandoned the train 
of his reflections, it was merely to express a thought in 
13 


1 94 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


rapid tones, and he seemed momentarily to shake off his 
torpor ; he replied to his wife’s forced smile by a me- 
chanical grimace, and immediately relapsed into his nerv- 
ously silent state. 

In the hours of anxious struggle, she had often seen 
him thus, hence she was not alarmed. If she had been 
in her own home, instead of occupying this strange 
mansion, she would have rushed to him, and seated on his 
knees, taken his burning head between her little hands 
and said : “ Come now ! what ails you ? what is the 
matter? Tell me everything so that, child as I may be, 
I may comfort my big boy.” 

But there, still in the presence of those people, always 
in full view, she dared not. She carefully and anxiously 
watched Sulpice’s mortified countenance. Since his 
entry on his ministerial functions, this was the first oc- 
casion, probably, that he had been so preoccupied. 

“ There is something the matter with you, is there not, 
my dear? ” 

“ No — nothing — Besides — ” 

The minister’s glance was a sufficient conclusion to 
his remark. Moreover, how could he, even if he had 
some trouble to confide, make it known before the ever 
watchful lackeys? Before these impassive attendants, 
who, though apparently obsequious, might in reality be 
hostile, and who looked at them with cold glances? 
What a distance separated them from the old-time 
intimacies, the cherished interchange of thought inter- 


PART FIRST 


J 95 

rapted by piquant kisses and laughter, just like a young 
husband and wife ! 

In truth, Adrienne had not thought of it : Sulpice 
could not talk. 

“ You will serve the coffee at once,” she said. 

She made haste in order that sl\e might take refuge 
in her own apartment to be alone with her husband. 
He, however, as if he shunned this tete-a-tete, eager as 
he was for solitude, quickly attributed his unpleasant 
humor to neuralgia or headache. Too much work or 
too close application of mind. 

“At the Ministerial Council perhaps?” remarked 
Adrienne inquiringly. 

“Yes, at the Council, — I must take a little fresh air — 
I will take a round in the Bois — The day is dry — That 
will do me good ! ” 

“Will you take me? ” she said gayly. 

“ If you wish,” he replied. Then, in an almost em- 
barrassed tone, he added : 

“ Perhaps it will be better for me to go alone — I 
have to think — to work — There is no sitting at the 
Chamber to-day ; and the day is entirely at my own dis- 
posal.” 

“Just as you please,” Adrienne replied, looking at 
Sulpice with a tender and submissive glance. “ It would, 
however, have been so delightful and beneficial to have 
gone to the Bois together on such a bright day ! But 
you and your affairs before everything, you are right ; 


igG HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

take an airing, be off, come, breathe — I shall be glad 
to see you return smiling cheerfully as 4 in the sweet 
days.” 

Sulpice looked at his young wife with a fondness that 
almost inspired him with remorse. In her look there 
was so complete an expression of her love. Then her 
affection was so deep, and her calm like the face of a 
motionless lake was so manifest, and she loved him so 
deeply, so intelligently. And how trustful, too ! 

He was impelled now to beg her don her cloak and 
to have a fur robe put into the coup£ and set out now, 
when the sun was gradually showing itself, like two lovers 
bound for a country party. At the same time he felt a 
desperate longing to be alone, to abandon himself to his 
new idea and to the image that beset him. He felt that 
he was leaving Adrienne for Marianne. 

He did not hold to the suggestion, in fact, he repeated 
that it would be better if he were alone. As there would 
be no session of the Chamber for a whole week, he 
would go out with Adrienne the next day. The coach- 
man could drive them a long distance, even to Saint- 
Cloud or Ville-d’Avray. They would breakfast together 
all alone, unknown, in the woods. 

“ Truly ? ” said Adrienne. 

“ Truly ! I feel the necessity of avoiding so many dem- 
onstrations in my honor.” 

Sulpice laughed. 

“ I am stifled by them,” he said, as he kissed Adri- 


PART FIRST 


*97 

enne, whose face was pink with delight at the thought of 
that unrestrained escapade. 

“ How you blush ! ” said Sulpice, ingenuously. “ What 
is the matter with you ? ” 

“With me ? Nothing.” 

She looked at him anxiously. 

“You think my complexion too ruddy ! I have not 
the Parisian tint. Only remain a minister for some 
time, and that will vanish. There is no dispraise in 
that.” 

She again offered her brow to him. 

He left her, happy to feel himself free. 

At last ! For an entire day he was released from the 
ordinary routine of his life ; from the wrangling of the 
assembly, the hubbub of the corridors, the gossip of the 
lobbies, interruptions, interrupted conversations, from all 
that excitement that he delighted in, but which at times 
left him crushed and feverish at the close of the day. 
He became once more master of his thoughts, of his 
meditation. He belonged to himself. It was almost 
impossible to recover his self-mastery in the stormy arena 
into which he was thrust, happy to be there, and where 
his distended nostrils inhaled, as it were, the fumes of 
sulphur. 

At times, amid the whirlwind of politics, he suffered 
from a yearning for rest, a sick longing for home quiet, 
a desire to be free, to go between the acts, as it were, 
to vegetate in some corner of the earth and to resume in 


198 his excellency the minister 

very truth an altogether different life from the exasper- 
ating, irritating life that he led in Paris, always, so to 
speak, under the lash; or, still better, to change the 
form of his activity, to travel, to feed his eyes on new 
images, the fresh verdure, or the varied scenes of un- 
known cities. 

But the years had rolled by amid the excitement and 
nervous strain of political life. He lived with Adrienne 
in an artificial and overheated atmosphere. Happy be- 
cause he was loved, that his ambitions were realized, 
that he charmed an assembly of men by the same power 
that had obtained him the adoration of this woman, yes, 
he was happy, very happy : to bless life, to excite envy, 
to arouse jealousy, to appear simply ridiculous if he 
complained of destiny ; and nevertheless, at the bottom 
of his soul, discontented without knowing why, consumed 
by intangible, feverish instincts, ill-defined desires for 
Parisian curiosities, having dreamed in his youth of re- 
sults very inferior to those he had realized, yet finding 
when he analyzed the realities that he enjoyed, that the 
promises of his dreams were more intoxicating than the 
best realizations. 

Vaudrey was an ambitious man, but he was ambitious 
to perform valiant feats. Life had formerly seemed to 
him to be made up of glory, triumphal entries into 
cities, accompanied by the fluttering of flags and the 
flourish of trumpets. He pictured conquests, victories, 
exaltations ! Theatrical magnificence ! But now, more 


PART FIRST 


199 

ironical, he was contented with quasi-triumphs, if his 
restless, anxious nature could be satisfied with what he 
obtained. 

Adrienne loved him. He loved her profoundly. 

Why had the meeting with Marianne troubled him so 
profoundly, then ? Manifestly, Mademoiselle Kayser 
realized the picture of his vanished dreams, and the de- 
sires of a particular love that the passion for Adrienne, 
although absolute, could not satisfy. This man had a 
nature of peculiar ardor — or rather, curious desires, a 
greedy desire to know, an itching need to approach and 
peep into abysses. 

Sometimes it seemed to Vaudrey that he had not 
lived at all, and this was the fear and desire of his life : 
to live that Parisian life which flattered all his instincts 
and awoke and reanimated all his dreams. But yester- 
day it had appeared to him when he met this young 
woman who raised her eyes to him, half-veiled by her 
loRg eyelashes, that a stage-curtain had been raised, dis- 
closing dazzling fairy scenery, and since then that 
scenery had been always before him. It banished, during 
his drive, all peace, and while the coup£ threaded its 
way along the Faubourg Saint-Honor^ toward the Arc- 
de-Triomphe, the minister who, but two hours before, 
had been plunged in state affairs, settled himself down 
in a corner of the carriage, his legs swaddled in a robe 
and his feet resting on a foot-warmer, looking at, but 
without observing the cold figures that walked rapidly 


200 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


past him, the houses lighted up by the sun’s rays, and 
the dry pavements, and he thought of those strange eyes 
and those black butterflies, which seemed to him to 
flutter over that fair hair like swallows over a field of ripe 
wheat. 

It pleased him to think of that woman. It was an en- 
tirely changed preoccupation, a relaxation. A curious, 
strangely agreeable sensation : his imagination thus play- 
ing truant, and wandering toward that vision, renewed 
his youth. He experienced therein the perplexities that 
troubled him at twenty. Love in the heart means fewer 
white hairs on the brow. And then, indeed, he would 
never, perhaps, see Mademoiselle Kayser again ! . He 
would, however, do everything to see her again at the 
coming soiree at the ministry, an invitation — Suddenly 
his thoughts abruptly turned to Ramel, whom he also 
wished to invite and meet again. He loved him so 
dearly. It was he who formerly, in the journalistic days, 
and at the time of the battles fought in the Nation 
Fran<;aise , had called Denis “ a conscience in a dress- 
coat.” 

Therefore, since he had an afternoon to spare, he 
would call on Ramel. He was determined to show him 
that he would never preserve the dignity of a minister 
with him. 

Rue Boursault, Batignolles,” he said to the coach- 
man, lowering one of the windows ; “ after that, only to 
the Bois ! ” 


PART FIRST 


201 


The coachman drove the coup£ toward the right, 
reaching the outer boulevards by way of Monceau Park. 

Vaudrey was delighted. He was going to talk open- 
heartedly to an old friend. Ah, Ramel ! he was bent 
on remaining in the background, on being nothing and 
loving his friends only when they were in defeat, as Je- 
liotte had said. Well, Vaudrey would take him as his 
adviser. This devil of a Ramel, this savage fellow 
should govern the state in spite of himself. 

The minister did not know RamePs present lodging 
which he had occupied only a short time. He expected 
to find dignified poverty and a cold apartment. As 
soon as Denis opened the door to him, he found himself 
in a workman’s dwelling that had been transformed by 
artistic taste into the small museum of a virtuoso. After 
having passed through a narrow corridor, and climbed a 
small, winding staircase, Vaudrey rang at the third floor 
of a little house in Rue Boursault and entered a well- 
kept apartment full of sunlight. 

Hanging on the walls were engravings and crayons in 
old-fashioned frames. A very plain mahogany bookcase 
contained some select volumes, which, though few, were 
frequently perused and were swollen with markers covr 
ered with notes. The apartment was small and humble : 
a narrow bedroom with an iron bedstead, a dressing 
room, a tiny dining-room furnished with cane-seated 
chairs, and the well-lighted study with his portraits and 
his frames of the old days. But with this simplicity, as 


202 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


neat as a newly-shaved old man, all was orderly, and 
arranged and cared for with scrupulous attention. 

This modest establishment, the few books, the deep 
peace, the oblivion found in this Batignolles lodging, in 
this home of clerks, poor, petty tradesmen and work- 
men, sufficed for Ramel. He rarely went out and then 
only to take a walk from which he soon returned ex- 
hausted. He had formerly worked so assiduously and 
had given, in and out of season, all his energy, his nerves 
and his body, improvising and scattering to the winds 
his appeals, his protests, his heart, his life, through the 
columns of the press. What an accumulation of pages, 
now destroyed or buried beneath the dust of neglected 
collections ! How much ink spilled ! And how much 
life-blood had been mingled with that ink ! 

Ramel willingly passed long hours every day at his 
study window, looking out on the green trees or at the 
high walls of a School of Design opposite, or at the end 
of a tricolored flag that waved from the frontal of a 
Primary Normal School that he took delight in watching ; 
then at the right, in the distance, throbbing like an in- 
cessant fever, he saw the bustling life of the Saint-Lazare 
Station, where with every shrill whistle of the engines, 
he saw white columns of smoke mount skyward and 
vanish like breaths. 

“Smoke against smoke,” thought Ramel, with his 
pipe between his teeth. “ And it would be just as well 
for one to struggle — a lost unity — against folly, as for a 


PART FIRST 


203 

single person to desire to create as much smoke as all 
these locomotives together ! ” 

Ramel appeared to be delighted to see Vaudrey, 
whose name the housekeeper murdered by announcing 
him as Monsieur Vaugrey . He placed a chair for him, 
and asked him smilingly, what he wanted “ with an 
antediluvian journalist.” 

“ A mastodon of the press,” he said. 

What had Vaudrey come for? 

His visit had no other object than to enjoy again a 
former faithful affection, the advice he used to obtain, 
and also to try to drag the headstrong Ramel into the 
ministry. Would not the directorship of the press 
tempt him ? 

“With it, the directing of the press!” said Denis. 
“ It is much better to have an opposition press than one 
that you have under your thumb. Friendly sheets ad- 
vise only foolishly.” 

“ Why, Vaudrey, do you know,” suddenly exclaimed 
the veteran journalist, “ that you are the first among my 
friends, who have come into power — I say the first — 
who has ever thought of me? ” 

“ You cannot do me a greater pleasure than tell me 
so, my dear Ramel. I know nothing more contemptible 
than ingrates. In my opinion, to remember what one 
owes to people, is to be scrupulously exact ; it is simply 
knowing orthography.” 

“ Well ! mercy ! there are a devilish lot of people who 


204 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


don’t know if the word gratitude is spelled with an e or 
an a. No, people are not so well skilled as that in 
orthography. There are not a few good little creatures 
to be sent back to school. All the more reason to be 
thankful for having learned by heart-^by heart, that is 
the way to put it, my dear Vaudrey — your participles.” 

Sulpice was well acquainted with Ramel’s singular 
wit, a little sly, but tinged with humor, like pure water 
into which a drop of gin has been poured, more per- 
fumed than bitter. He knew no man more indulgent 
and keen-sighted than him. 

“ For what should I bear a grudge against people ? ” 
said the veteran. “ Eor their stupidity? I pity them, I 
haven’t time to dislike them ; one can’t do everything.” 

Besides, the minister felt altogether happy to be with 
this man no longer in vogue, but who might be likened 
to coins that have ceased to be current and have ac- 
quired a higher value as commemorative medals. He 
could unbosom himself to him : treachery was impossible. 
He longed to have such a stay beside him, and still urged 
him, but Ramel was inflexible. 

“ But as I have already said — if I have need of you? ” 

“Of me? I am too old.” 

“Of your advice? ” 

“ Well ! it is not necessary for me to give you my 
address, since you find yourself here now, or to tell 
you that you can depend on me, seeing you know 
me.” 


PART FIRST 


205 

Vaudrey felt that it was useless to pursue the matter 
further. He was not talking with a misanthrope or a 
scorner, but with a learned man. He would find at 
hand whenever he needed it, the old, ever faithful de- 
votedness of this white-haired man, who, with skull-cap 
on his head, was smoking his pipe near the window 
when the minister entered. 

“Then, you are happy, Ramel? ” said Sulpice, a little 
astonished, perhaps. 

“ Perfectly so.” 

“ You have no ambition for anything whatever? ” 

“ Nothing, I await philosophically the hour for the 
monument.” 

He smiled when he saw that his own familiar remark 
was puzzling Vaudrey. 

“ The monument, there, on one side : Villa Mont- 
martre ! — Oh ! I am not anxious to have done with life. 
It is amusing enough at times. But, after all, it is 
necessary to admit that the comedy ends when it is 
finished. One fine day, I shall be found sleeping some- 
where, here in my armchair, or in my bed, suddenly, or 
perhaps after a long illness — this would weary me, as a 
lingering illness is repugnant to me — and you will read 
in one or two journals a short paragraph announcing 
that the obsequies of Monsieur Denis Ramel, one-time 
editor of a host of democratic newspapers, a celebrated 
man in his day, but little known recently, will take 
place on such a day at such an hour. Few will attend, 


206 his excellency the mnister 

but I ask you to be present — that is, if there is no im- 
portant sitting at the Chamber.” 

Old Ramel twirled his moustache with his long, lean 
fingers as he spoke these last words into which he infused 
a dash of irony. He nullified it, however, as he extended 
his frankly opened hand and said to Sulpice Vau- 
drey : 

“ What I have said to you is very cheerful ! A thou- 
sand pardons. The more so that I do not think of 
doubting you for a single moment — You have always 
been credulous. That is your defect, and it is a capital 
one. In the world of business men and politicians, who 
are for the most part egotists, of mediocrities, or to speak 
plainly — I know no more picturesque term — of dodgers , — 
you move about with all the illusions and tastes of an 
artist. You are like the brave fellows of our army, poets 
of war, as it were, who hurled themselves to their de- 
struction against regiments of engineers. Certainly, my 
dear minister, I shall always be delighted to give you my 
counsel, you whom I used to call my dear child, and if 
the observations of a living waif can serve you in any- 
thing, count on me. Dispose of me, and if by chance I 
can be useful to you, I shall feel myself amply re- 
paid.” 

“ Ah ! ” cried Sulpice, “ if you only knew how much 
good it does me to hear the sincere thoughts of a man 
one can rely on ! How different is their ring from that 
of others ! ” 


PART FIRST 


207 

He then allowed himself to pass by an easy transition 
to the confessions of his first deceptions or annoyances. 

The selection that very morning, of Warcolier as 
Under Secretary of State in a Republican administration, 
a man who had played charades at Compiegne, had 
thrown him into a state of angry excitement. 

Ramel, however, burst into laughter. 

“ Ah, nonsense ! You will see many other such ! 
Why, governments always do favors to their enemies 
when their opponents pretend to lower their colors ! 
What good is it to serve friends? They love you.” 

“This does not vex you, then, old Republican ? ” 

“ I, an old soldier grown white in harness,” said Ra- 
mel, whose moustache still played under his smile, “ that 
doesn’t disturb my peace in the least. I comfort my- 
self with the thought that my dream, my ideal ’ to use a 
trite expression, is not touched by such absurdities, and 
I am persuaded that progress does not lag and that the 
cause of liberty gains ground, in spite of so much injus- 
tice and folly. I confess, however, that I sometimes 
feel the strange emotion that a man might experience 
on seeing, after the lapse of years, the lovely woman 
whom he loved to distraction at twenty, in the arms 
of a person whom he did not particularly respect.” 

Ramel had lighted his pipe, and half-hidden by the 
bluish wreaths of smoke, chatted away, quite happy on 
his side to give himself up to the revelation of the 
secret of his heart without the least bitterness, and like 


208 His EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

an elder brother, advised this man, who was still young 
and whom he had compared formerly to one of those too 
fine pieces of porcelain that the least shock would crack. 

“Ah!” he said abruptly, “ above all, my dear Vau- 
drey, “ do not fear to appear in the tribune more uncouth 
and assertive than you really are. In times when the 
word sympathetic becomes an insult, it is wiser to have 
the manners of a boor. Tact is a good thing.” 

“ I shall never succeed in that,” said Sulpice, smiling 
as usual. 

“ So much the worse ! What has been wanting in my 
case is not to have been able to secure the title of our 
antipathetic confrere . The modest and refined people 
are dupes. By virtue of swelling their necks, turkeys 
succeed in resembling peacocks. Believe me, my dear 
friend, it is dangerous to have too refined a taste, even 
in office, even in the rank in which you are placed. One 
hesitates to proclaim the excessively stupid things that 
stir the crowd, and the blockhead who is bold enough to 
declare his folly creates a hellish noise with his nonsense, 
while a man of refinement, who is not always a squeam- 
ish man, remains in his corner unseen. Remember that 
more moths are caught at night with a greasy candle 
than with a diamond of the first water.” 

“You speak in paradox — ” Sulpice began. 

“And you think I am making paradoxes ? Not in 
the least, I will give you — not at cost, for it has cost me 
dearly, but in block, — my stock of experience. Do with 


PART FIRST 


209 

it what you please, and, above all, beware of alle 
donne / ’ ’ 

“ Women ? ” asked the minister, with involuntary dis- 
quiet. 

“ Women, exactly. Encircling every minister there is 
a squadron of seductive women, who though perhaps 
more fully clothed than the flying squadron of the Medi- 
cis, is certainly not less dangerous. Women who com- 
plain that they are denied political rights, have in reality 
all, since they are able to rule administrations and knock 
ministers off, as the Du Barry did her oranges ! When I 
speak of women, you will observe well that I do not 
speak of your admirable wife,” said Ramel, with a re- 
spect that was most touching, coming from this honest 
veteran. 

“ While we are gossiping,” he resumed, “ I am going 
to tell you frankly what strikes me most clearly in the 
present conjuncture. You will gather from it what you 
choose. In these days, my dear Vaudrey, what is most 
remarkable is the facility men have for destroying their 
credit and wearing themselves out. Politics, especially, 
entails a formidable consumption. It seems that the 
modern being is not cut out to wear long. This, per- 
haps, is due to the fact that public business, whichever 
party wins, is always committed to men who are ill- 
prepared for their good fortune. I do not say this of 
you, who, intellectually speaking, are an exception. But 
men are no longer bathed in the Styx, or perhaps they 

14 


210 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


show the heel too quickly. For some years, moreover, 
the strange phenomenon has presented itself of the pro- 
vincial towns being the prey of Parisian manufacturers, 
who reconstruct them and demolish their picturesque 
antiquity, in order to garnish their boulevards and fine 
mansions, while Paris, on the contrary, is directed and 
governed by provincials, who provincialize it just as the 
Parisian companies parisianize the provinces. Our pro- 
vincials, astonished to find themselves at the head of 
Parisian movement, lose their heads somewhat and rush 
with immoderate appetites at the delicate feast. They 
have the gluttony of famished children, and on the 
most perilous question they are simply gourmands. It 
is woman again to whom I refer. The country squires 
and gentlemen riders, who have grown old in their prov- 
ince with the love of farm-wenches, or small tradesmen 
professing medicine or law within their sub-prefectures, 
after having made verses for the female tax-gatherer, 
all, you understand, all are hungry to know that unknown 
creature : woman. And speedily enough the woman has 
drained their Excellencies. Oh ! yes, even to the mar- 
row ! She robs the Opposition of its energy ; the 
faithful to liberty, of the virility of their faith. Energetic 
ministers or ministers with ideas are not long before 
woman destroys both their strength and their ideas. 
Eh ! parbleu ! it is just because they do not rule Paris, 
as one pleads a civil suit in a provincial court.” 

The minister listened with a somewhat anxious, sober 


PART FIRST 


21 I 


air to these truisms, clear-cut as with a knife, expressed 
by the old journalist without passion, without exaspera- 
tion, without anger. He was, in fact, pleased that 
Ramel should speak to him so candidly. 

Yes, indeed, what the old “veteran,” — as Denis some- 
times called himself — said, were Vaudrey’s own senti- 
ments. These sufficiently saddening observations he 
had himself made more than once. It was precisely 
to put an end to such abuses, folly, and provincialism, 
this hobbling spirit inculcated in a great nation, that he 
had assumed power, and was about to increase his efforts. 

He thanked Ramel profusely and sincerely. This 
visit would not be his last, he would often return to this 
Rue Boursault where he knew that a true friend would 
be waiting. 

“ And you will be right,” said Denis. “ Nowhere 
will you find a love more profound, or hear truths more 
frankly spoken. You see, Vaudrey, the walls of the 
ministerial apartments are too thick. There, neither 
the noise of carriages nor the sound of street-cries is 
heard. I have passed a few days in a palace — in ’48, — 
at the Tuileries, as a national guard : at the end of two 
hours, I heard nothing. The carpets, the curtains, stifled 
everything, and, believe me, a cannon might have been 
fired without my hearing anything more than an echo, 
much less could I hear the truth ! Besides, people do 
not like to pronounce truth too loudly. They are 
afraid.” 


212 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ I swear to you that I will listen to everything,” re- 
plied Sulpice, “ and I will strive to understand every- 
thing. And since I have the power — ” 

Denis Ramel shook his head : 

“ Power ? Ah ! you will see if that is ever taken in any 
but homoeopathic doses ! Why, you will have against 
you the bureaux , those sacrosanct bureaux that govern 
this country since bureaucracy has existed and they will 
cram more than one Warcolier down your throat, I warn 
you.” 

“Yes, if I allow it,” said Vaudrey haughtily. 

“ Eh ! my poor friend, you have already allowed it,” 
said the veteran. 

He had risen, Vaudrey had taken his hat, and he said 
to the minister, leaning on his arm, with gentle familiarity, 
as he led him to the door : 

“ Power is like a kite, but there is always some rascal 
who holds the thread.” 

“Come, come,” said Vaudrey, “you are a pessimist ! ” 

“ I confess that Schopenhauer is not unpleasant to 
me — sometimes.” 

Thereupon they separated, after a cordial grasp of the 
hand and Denis Ramel resumed his pipe and his seat at 
the window comer, while the minister carried away from 
this interview, as if he had not already been in the habit 
of a frank interchange of opinions, an agreeable though 
perhaps anxious impression. 

He felt the need of mentally digesting this conversation : 


PART FIRST 


213 


the idea of going back, on this beautiful February day, 
to his official apartments did not enter his mind. He 
was overcome by a springtime hunger. 

“To the Bois ! Around the Lake !” he said to the 
coachman, as he re-entered his carriage. 

The air was as balmy as on an afternoon in May. Vau- 
drey lowered the carriage window to breathe freely. 
This exterior boulevard that he rolled along was full of 
merry pedestrians. One would have thought it was a 
Sunday afternoon. Old people, sitting on benches, were 
enjoying the early sun. 

Sulpice looked at them, his brain busy with Ramel’s 
warnings. He had just called him a pessimist, but in- 
wardly he acknowledged that the old stager, who had 
remained a philosopher, spoke the truth. Woman ! Why 
had Ramel spoken to him of woman? 

This half-disquieting thought speedily left Sulpice, 
attracted as he was by the joyous movement, the delight 
of the eyes which presented itself to his view. 

In thus journeying to the Bois, he felt a delightful 
emotion of solitude and forgetfulness. He gradually 
recovered his self-possession and became himself once 
more. He drew his breath more freely in that long 
avenue where, at this hour of the day, few persons 
passed. There was no petition to listen to, no salutation 
to acknowledge. 

Ah ! how easy it would be to be happy, to sweetly 
enjoy the Paris that fascinated him instead of burning 


214 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


away his life ! Just now, at the foot of the Arc de 
Triomphe, he had seen people dressed in blouses, sleep- 
ing like Andalusian beggars before the walls of the 
Alhambra. Little they cared for the fever of success ! 
Perhaps they were wise. 

An almost complete solitude reigned over the Bois. 
Vaudrey saw, as he glanced between the copsewood, now 
growing green, only a few isolated pedestrians, some 
English governesses in charge of scampering children, 
the dark green uniform of a guard or the blue blouse of 
a man who trimmed the trees. 

The coachman drove slowly and Sulpice, enjoying the 
intoxication of this early sun, lowered the shade and 
breathed the keen air while he repeated to himself that 
peaceful joy was within the reach of everybody at Paris. 

“ But why is this wood so deserted ? It is so pleasant 
here.” 

He almost reproached himself for not having brought 
Adrienne. She would have been so happy for this ad- 
vanced spring day. She required so little to make her 
smile : mere crumbs of joy. She was better than he. 

He excused himself by reflecting that he would not 
have been able to talk to Kamel. 

And then it would have been necessary to talk to 
Adrienne, whereas the joy of the present moment was 
this solitary silence, the bath of warm air taken in the 
complete forgetfulness of the habitual existence. 

The sight of the blue, gleaming lake before him, en- 


PART FIRST 


2I 5 

circled with pines, like an artificial Swiss lake, compelled 
him to look out of the window. 

The coachman slowly drove the carriage to the left 
in order to make the tour of the Lake. 

Vaudrey looked at the sheet of water upon which the 
light played, and on which two or three skiffs glided 
noiselessly, even the sound of their oars not reaching 
his ears. 

At the extremity of the alley, a carriage was stopping, 
a hackney coach whose driver was peacefully sleeping 
in the sunshine, with his head leaning on his right 
shoulder, his broad-brimmed hat, bathed in the sunshine, 
serving him as a shade. 

It was the only carriage there, and a few paces from 
the border of the water, standing out in dark relief 
against the violet-blue of the lake, a woman stood 
surrounded by a group of ducks of all shades, running 
after morsels of brown bread while uttering their hoarse 
cries. 

Two white swans had remained in the water and 
looked at her with a dignified air, at a distance. 

At the first glance at this woman, Sulpice felt a 
strange emotion. His legs trembled and his heart was 
agitated. 

He could not be mistaken, he certainly recognized 
her. Either there was an extraordinary resemblance 
between them, or it was Mademoiselle Kayser herself. 

Marianne? Marianne on the edge of this Lake at an 


2i6 his excellency the minister 

hour when there was no one at the Bois? Vaudrey be- 
lieved neither in superstitions nor in predestination. 
Nevertheless, he considered the meeting extraordinary, 
but there is in this fantastic life a reality that brings in our 
path the being about whom one has just been thinking. 
He had frequently observed this fact. He had already 
descended from his carriage to go to her, taking a little 
pathway under the furze in order to reach the water’s 
edge. There was no longer any doubt, it was she. 
Evidently he was to meet Mademoiselle Kayser some 
day. But how could chance will that he should desire 
to take that promenade to the Lake at the very hour 
that the young woman had driven there? 

As he advanced, he thought how surprised Marianne 
would be. As he walked along, he looked at her. 

She stood near a kind of wooden landing jutting 
out over the water. Over her black dress she had flung 
a short cloak of satin, embroidered with jet which 
sparkled in the sunlight. The light wind gently waved a 
black feather that hung from her hat, in which other 
feathers were entwined with a fringe of old gold bullion. 
Vaudrey noted every detail of this living statuette of a 
Parisian woman : between a little veil knotted behind 
her head and the lace ruching of her cloak, light, golden 
curls fell on her neck, and in that frame of light, this 
elegant woman, this silhouette standing out in full relief 
against the sky and the horizon line of the water, with a 
pencil of rays gilding her fair locks, seemed more ex- 































» I 















. jj 




PART FIRST 


217 

quisite and more the “woman” to Sulpice than in the 
decollete of a ball costume. 

When she heard the crushing of the sand by Sulpice’s 
footsteps as he approached her with timid haste, she 
turned abruptly. Under her small black veil, drawn 
tightly over her face, and whose dots looked like so many 
patches on her face, Vaudrey at first observed Marianne’s 
almost sickly paleness, then her suddenly joyous glance. 
A furtive blush mounted even to the young girl’s cheek. 

“You here?” she said — “you, Monsieur le Minis- 
tre ? ” 

She had already imparted an entirely different tone 
to these questions. There was more abandon in the first, 
which seemed more like a cry, but the second betrayed 
a sudden politeness, perhaps a little affected. 

Vaudrey replied by some commonplace remark. It 
was a fine day ; he was tired ; he wished to warm him- 
self in this early sunshine. But she ? — 

“ Oh ! I — really I don’t know why I am here. Ask 
the — my coachman. He has driven me where he 
pleased.” 

She spoke in a curt, irritated tone, under which either 
deception or grief was hidden. 

She was still mechanically throwing crumbs of bread 
around her, which were eagerly snatched at by the many- 
colored ducks, white or gray, black, spotted, striped like 
tulips, marbled like Cordovan leather, with iridescent 
green or blue necks, whose tone suggested Venetian 


2 l8 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


glassware, all of them hurrying, stretching their necks, 
opening their bills, or casting themselves at Marianne’s 
feet, fighting, then almost choking themselves to swallow 
the enormous pieces of bread that were sold by a dealer 
close at hand. 

“ Ah ! bless me ! I did not think I should have the 
honor of meeting you here,” she said. 

“The honor?” said Vaudrey. “I, I should say the 
joy.” 

She looked straight into his eyes, frankly. 

“ I do not know what joy is, to-day,” she said. “ I 
come from the Continental Hotel, where I hoped to 
see — ” 

“ What is that ? ” 

“ Nothing—” 

“ If it were nothing, you would not have frowned so.” 

“ Oh ! well ! a friend — a friend whom I have again 
found — and who has disappeared. Just so, — abruptly — 
No matter, perhaps, after all ! What happens, must 
happen. In short — and to continue my riddle, behold 
me feeding these ducks. God knows why ! I detest 
the creatures. The state feeds them badly, Monsieur le 
Ministre, I tell you : they are famished. Well ? well ? ” 
she said to a species of Indian duck, bolder than the 
others, who snapped at the hem of her skirt to attract 
attention and to demand fresh mouthfuls. 

She commenced to laugh nervously, and said : 

“That one isn’t afraid.” 


PART FIRST 


219 

She threw him a morsel that he swallowed with a 
greedy gulp. 

“ Do you know, Monsieur le Ministre, that the story 
of these ducks is that of the human species ? There are 
some that have got nothing of all the bread that I have 
thrown them, and there are others who have gorged 
enough to kill them with indigestion. How would you 
classify that? Poor political economy.” 

“ Oh, oh ! ” said Vaudrey. “ You are wandering into 
the realms of lofty philosophy ! — ” 

“Apropos of that, yes,” said Marianne, as she pointed 
to the line of birds that hurried on all sides, left the water, 
waddled about, uttering their noisy cries. “ You know 
that when one is sad, one philosophizes anent everything.” 

“And you are sad?” asked Sulpice, in a voice that 
certainly quivered slightly. 

She threw without breaking, the piece of bread that 
remained, brushed her gloved fingers and turning to- 
ward the minister, said with a smile that would make 
the flesh creep : 

“Very sad. Oh ! what would you have? The black 
butterflies, you know, the blue devils.” 

He saw her again, just as she had appeared before 
him yesterday, with arms and shoulders bare, lovely and 
seductive, and now, with her shoulders hidden under her 
cloak, her face half-veiled and quite pale, he thought her 
still more disquietingly charming. Moreover, the strange- 
ness of the situation, the chance meeting, imparted 


220 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


something of mystery to their conversation and the at- 
traction of an assignation. 

Ah ! how happy he felt at having desired to breathe 
the air of the Bois ! It now seemed to him that he had 
only come there for her sake. Once more it appeared 
to him that some magnetic thought led to this deserted 
spot these two beings, who but yesterday had only ex- 
changed commonplace remarks and who, in this sun- 
bathed solitude, under these trees, in the fresh breeze 
of the departing winter, met again, impelled toward 
each other, drawn on by the same sympathy. 

“ Do you know what I was thinking of ? ” she said, 
smiling graciously. “ Yes, of what I was thinking as I 
cast the brown bread to those ducks ? An idyll, is it 
not ? Well ! I was thinking that if one dared — a 
quick plunge into such a sheet of water — very pure — 
quite tempting — Eh ! well ! it would end all.” 

Yaudrey did not reply. He looked at her stupidly, 
his glance betraying the utmost anxiety. 

“ Oh ! fear nothing,” she said. “ A whim ! and be- 
sides, I can swim better than the swans, there is no 
danger.” 

He had seized her hands instinctively and he experi- 
enced a singular delight in feeling the flesh of Marianne’s 
wrists under his fingers. 

“You are feverish,” he said. 

“ I should be, at any rate.” 

Her voice was still harsh, as if she were distressed. 


PART FIRST 


221 


“ The departure of — of that friend — has, then, caused 
you much suffering?” 

“ Suffering? No. Vexation, yes — You have built 
many castles of cards in your life — Come ! how stupid I 
am ! ” she said bitterly. “ You still build many of them. 
Well ! there it is, you see ! ” 

She had withdrawn her hands from Sulpice, and walked 
away slowly from the border of the lake, going toward 
the end of the path where her coachman awaited her, 
his eyes closed and his mouth open. 

“Where are you going on leaving the Bois ? ” asked 
Vaudrey. 

“I? I don’t know.” 

He had made a movement. 

“ Oh ! once more I tell you, don’t be afraid,” she 
said. “ I want to live. Fear nothing, I will go home, 
parbleu.” 

“ Home?” 

“ Or to my uncle’s.” 

“ But, really, Monsieur le Ministre,” she said, “ you 
are taking upon yourself the affairs of Monsieur Jouvenet, 
your Prefect of Police. I know him well, and certainly 
he asks fewer questions than Your Excellency.” 

“That, perhaps,” said Vaudrey, with a smile, “is be- 
cause he has less anxiety about you than I have.” 

“ Ah ! bah ! ” said Marianne. 

She had by this time got close to her hackney coach 
and looked at the coachman for a moment. “Don’t you 


222 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


think it would be very wrong to waken him? ” she said. 
“ Will you accompany me for a moment, Monsieur le 
Ministre ? ” 

Vaudrey paled slightly, divining under this question a 
seductive prospect. 

Marianne’s gray eyes were never turned from him. 

They walked along slowly, followed by the coup£ 
whose lengthened shadow was projected in front of them 
along the yellow pathway, moving beside the lake where 
the swans floated with their pure white wings extended 
and striking the water with their feet, raising all around 
them a white foam, like snow falling in flakes. The 
blue heavens were reflected in the water. The grass, of 
a burnt-green, almost gray color, looked like worn velvet 
here and there, showing the weft and spotted with earth. 

Side by side they walked, Vaudrey earnestly watching 
Marianne, while she gazed about her and pointed out to 
him the gray, winter- worn rocks, the smooth ivy, and on 
the horizon some hinds browsing, in the far distance, as 
in a desert, the bare grass as yellow as ripe wheat, around 
a pond, in a gloomy landscape, russet horizons against a 
pale sky, presenting a forlorn, - mysterious and fleeting 
aspect. 

“ One would think one’s self at the end of the world,” 
said Sulpice, with lowered voice and troubled heart. 

A slight laugh from Marianne was her only reply, as 
she pointed with the tip of her finger to an inscription 
on a sign : 


PART FIRST 


223 

" To Croix- Catelan ! ” she said. “That end of the 
world is decidedly Parisian ! ” 

“ Nevertheless, see how isolated we are to-day.” 

It seemed as if she had divined his thought, for she 
took a path that skirted a road and there, in the nar- 
rowest strip of soft, fresh soil, on which the tiny heels of 
her boots made imprints like kisses upon a cheek, she 
walked in front of him, the shadows of the small 
branches dappling her black dress, while Vaudrey, 
deeply moved, still looked at her, framed as she was by 
trees with moss-covered trunks and surrounded with 
brambles, a medley of twisted branches. 

And Sulpice felt, at each step that he took, a more 
profound emotion. Along this russet-tinted wood, 
stood out here and there the bright trunks of birch- 
trees, and far above it, the pale blue sky ; the abyss of 
heaven, strewn with milky clouds and throughout the 
course of this pathway arose like a Cybelean incense, a 
healthful and fresh odor that filled the lungs and infused 
a desire to live. 

To live ! and, thought Sulpice, but a moment ago this 
lovely, slender girl spoke of dying. He approached her 
gently, walking by her side, at first not speaking, then 
little by little returning to that thought and almost 
whispering in her ear — that rosy ear that stood out 
against the paleness of her cheek : 

“Is it possible to think of anything besides the open- 
ing spring, in this wood where everything is awakening 


224 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


to life? Is it really true, Marianne, that you really 
wished to die? ” 

He did not feel astonished at having dared to call her 
by name. It seemed as if he had known her for years. 
He forgot everything, as if the world was nothing but a 
dream and that this dream presented this woman’s face. 

“Yes,” she replied. “Upon my honor, I was weary 
of life, but I see that most frequently at the very mo- 
ment when one despairs — ” 

She stopped suddenly. 

“Well?” he asked, as he waited for her to continue. 

“ Nothing. No, nothing ! ” 

She commenced to laugh, calling his attention to the 
end of the path, to a broader alley which brought them 
back to the edge of the lake, whose blue line they saw 
in the distance. 

“ Blue on blue,” she said, pointing to the sky and the 
water. “ You reproach me for not liking blue, Monsieur 
le Ministre, see ! I am taking an azure bath. This 
horizon is superb, is it not? ” 

Vaudrey debated with himself if she were jesting. 
Why should she give him that title which here and at 
such a moment, had such an out-of-place ring? 

She glanced at him sidelong with a little droll ex- 
pression, her pretty mouth yielding to a smile that en- 
ticed a kiss. 

“We shall soon have returned to my carriage,” she 
said. “ Already ! ” 


PART FIRST 


225 


“That already pleases me,” said Sulpice. 

“ It is true. This short promenade is nothing, but it 
suffices to make one forget many things.” 

“ Is it not? ” exclaimed Vaudrey. 

The shadow of his coup£ was still projected between 
them along the ochre-colored road. 

“ Do you come to the Bois often ? ” asked the minister. 

“No. Why?” 

“Because I shall frequently return here,” he said in a 
trembling voice. 

“ Really ! — Then, oh ! why then, it would be love- 
making?” said Marianne, who pierced him with her 
warm, tender glances. 

He wished to seize this woman’s hand and print a 
kiss thereon, or to press his lips upon her bare neck 
upon which the golden honey-colored ringlets danced in 
the bright sunlight. 

“ On these clear, fine days,” she said in an odd tone, 
emphasizing every word, “ it is very likely that I shall 
return frequently to visit this pathway. Eh ! what is 
that? ” she said, turning around. 

She was dragging a dry bramble that had fastened its 
thorns to the folds of her satin skirt and she stopped to 
shake it off. 

“Stop,” said Sulpice. 

He desired to tread on the russet-colored bramble. 

“You will tear my gown,” said Marianne. “The 
bramble clings too tightly.” 


226 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

Then he stooped, gently removed the thorn, and 
Marianne, her bosom turned toward him and half-stoop- 
ing, looked at that man — a minister — almost kneeling 
before her in this wood. 

He cast the bramble away from him. 

“There,” he said. 

“ Thanks.” 

As he rose, he felt Marianne’s fresh breath on his 
forehead. It fell on his face, as sweet as new-mown hay. 
He became very pale and looked at her with so pene- 
trating an expression that she blushed slightly — from 
pleasure, perhaps, — and until they reached the carriage 
where her coachman was still sleeping, they said nothing 
further, fearing that they had both said too much. 

At the moment when she entered her carriage, Sulpice, 
suddenly, with an effort at boldness, said to her, as he 
leaned over the door : 

“ I must see you again, Marianne.” 

“What is the use? ” she said, keeping her eyes fixed 
on his. 

“Where shall I see you? ” he asked, without replying 
to her question. 

“ I do not know — at my house — ” 

“ At your house? ” 

“Wait,” she added abruptly, “ I will write to you.” 

“You promise me?” 

“ On my word of honor. At the ministry, Personal \ 
isn’t that so?” 


PART FIRST 


227 

“ Yes ! — Ah ! you are very good ! ” he cried, with- 
out knowing what he was saying, while Marianne’s coach- 
man whipped his horses and the carriage disappeared in 
the direction of Paris. 

It seemed to Vaudrey, who remained standing, that 
little gloved fingers appeared behind the window and 
that he caught glimpses of a face hidden under a black, 
dotted veil. 

The carriage disappeared in the distance. 

“To the ministry ! ” said the minister, as he got into 
his carriage. 

He stretched himself out as if intoxicated. He looked 
at all the carriages along the drive of the Bois de Bou- 
logne, the high life was already moving toward the 
Lake. In caleches, old ladies in mourning appeared with 
pale nuns, and old men with red decorations stretched 
out under lap-robes. Pretty girls with pale countenances 
pierced with bright eyes, like fragments of coal in flour, 
showed themselves at the doors of the coupes, close to the 
muzzles of pink-nosed, well- combed, white-haired little 
dogs. Vaudrey strove to find Marianne amid that throng, 
to see her again. She was far away. 

He thought only of her, while his coup£ went down 
the Avenue des Champs-Elysees, bustling with noise and 
movement and flooded with light. The coachman took 
a side street and the carriage disappeared through an 
open gateway between two high posts surmounted by 
two lamps, in a passage leading to a huge white mansion 


228 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


whose slate roof was ablaze with sunlight. An infantry 
soldier in red trousers, with a shako on his head, mounted 
guard and stood motionless beside a brown-painted 
sentry-box that stood at the right. Above the gateways 
a new tricolor flag, in honor of the new ministry, waved 
in the sunshine. 

Against the ministerial edifice were two gas fixtures 
bearing two huge capital letters : R. F., ready to be 
illuminated on important reception nights. 

Two lackeys hastily opening the door, rushed up to 
the halted carriage and stood at its door. 

“ Adieu ! Marianne,” thought Sulpice, as he placed 
his foot in the antechamber of this vast mansion as cold 
as a tomb 


VIII 


Marianne Kayser was superstitious. She believed that 
in the case of compromised affairs, salvation appeared 
at the supreme moment of playing the very last stake. 
She had always rebounded, for her part, — like a rubber- 
ball, she said — at the moment that she found herself 
overthrown, and more than half conquered. Fate had 
given some cause for her superstitious ideas. She thought 
herself lost, and was weary of searching, of living, in 
fact, when suddenly Monsieur de Rosas reached Paris 
from the other end of the world. That was salvation. 


PART FIRST 


229 

The duke did not prove very difficult to ensnare. He 
had yielded like a child in Sabine’s boudoir. Marianne 
left that soiree with unbounded delight. She had re- 
covered all her hopes and regained her luck. The next 
day she would again see Rosas. She passed the night 
in dreams. Light and gold reigned upon her life. She 
was radiant on awaking. 

Her uncle, on seeing her, found her looking younger 
and superb. 

'‘You are as beautiful as a Correggio, who though a 
voluptuous painter, must have been talented. You ought 
to pose to me for a Saint Cecilia. It would be magnifi- 
cent, with a nimbus — ” 

“ Oh ! let your saint come later,” said Marianne, “ I 
haven’t time.” 

Simon Kayser did not ask the young woman, more- 
over, why “ she had not time.” Marianne was perfectly 
free. Each managed his affairs in his own way. Such, 
in fact, was one of the favorite axioms of this painter, a 
man of principle. 

Marianne breakfasted quickly and early, and after 
dressing herself, during which she studied coquettish 
effects while standing before her mirror, she left the 
house, jumped into a cab and drove to the Hotel Con- 
tinental. With proud mien and tossing her head, she 
asked for the duke as if he belonged to her. She was 
almost inclined to exclaim before all the people : “ I am 
his mistress ! ” 


230 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


But she suddenly turned pale upon hearing that Mon- 
sieur de Rosas had left. 

“What! gone?” 

Gone thus, suddenly, unceremoniously, without notice, 
without a word? It was not possible. 

They were obliged to confirm this news to her several 
times at the hotel office. Monsieur le due had that 
very morning ordered a coup£ to take him to catch a 
train for Calais. It was true that he had left some bag- 
gage behind, but at the same time he notified them 
that they would perhaps have to forward it to him in 
England later. 

Marianne listened in stupid astonishment. She be- 
came livid under her little veil. 

“Monsieur de Rosas did not receive a telegram? ” 

“Yes, madame.” 

“Ah!” 

Something serious had, perhaps, suddenly intervened 
in the duke’s life. Nevertheless, this abrupt departure 
without notification, following the exciting soiree of the 
previous day, greatly astonished this woman who but 
now believed herself securely possessed of Jos£. 

“ Nonsense ! ” she thought. “ He was afraid of me — 
Yes, that’s it ! — Of course, he was afraid of me. He 
loves me much, too much, and distrusts himself. He 
has gone away.” 

She commenced to laugh uneasily as she got into her 
carriage again. 


PART FIRST 


231 


“ Assuredly, that is part of my fate. That stupid Guy 
leaves for Italy. Rosas leaves for England. Steam was 
invented to admit of escape from dangerous women. 
I did not follow Lissac. What if I followed the duke? ” 

She shrugged her shoulders, and gnawed her cambric 
handkerchief under her veil, her head resting on the 
back of the coach, while the driver waited, standing on 
the sidewalk in front of the hotel, ignorant of the direc- 
tion in which the young woman wished to go. 

Marianne felt herself beaten. She was like a gambler 
who loses a decisive game. Evidently, Rosas only showed 
more clearly by the action he had taken, how much he 
was smitten ; she measured his love by her own dismay ; 
but what was the good of that love, if the duke escaped 
in a cowardly fashion ? “ But where could she find him ? 

Where follow him? Where write to him? ” A man who 
runs about as he does ! A madman ! Perhaps on ar- 
riving at Dover he had already re-embarked for Japan or 
Australia. 

“ Ah ! the unexpected happens, it seems,” thought 
Marianne, laughing maliciously, as she considered the 
ludicrousness of her failure. 

“Madame, we are going — ?” indifferently asked the 
coachman, who was tired of waiting. 

“Where you please — to the Bois ! ” 

“Very good, madame.” 

He looked at his huge aluminum watch, coolly remark- 
ing : 


232 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ It was a quarter of twelve when I took Madame — ” 

“ Good ! good ! — to the Bois ! ” 

The movement of the carriage, the sight of the passers- 
by, the sunlight playing on the fountains and the paving- 
stones of the Place de la Concorde fully occupied Ma- 
rianne’s mind, although irritating her at the same time. 
All the cheerfulness attending the awakening spring, de- 
lightful as it is in Paris, seemed irony to her. She felt 
again, but with increased bitterness, all the sentiments 
she experienced a few mornings previously when she 
called on Guy and told him of her burdensome weariness 
and distaste of life. Of what use was she now? She 
had just built so many fond dreams on hope ! And all 
her edifices had crumbled. 

“ All has to be recommenced. To lead the stupid life 
of a needy, lost, harassed woman ; no, that is too ridic- 
ulous, too sad ! What then — ” she said to herself, as 
with fixed eyes she gazed into the infinite and discovered 
no solution. 

She was savagely annoyed at Rosas. She would have 
liked to tear him in pieces like the handkerchief that she 
shredded. Ah ! if he should ever return to her after 
this flight ! 

But perhaps it was not a flight — who knows ? The 
duke would write, would perhaps reappear. 

“ No,” a secret voice whispered to Marianne. “ The 
truth is that he is afraid of you ! It is you, you, whom 
he flees from.” 


PART FIRST 


233 

To renounce everything was enough to banish all 
patience. Yesterday, on leaving Rosas, she believed 
herself to be withdrawn forever from the wretched 
Bohemian life she had so painfully endured. To-day 
she felt herself sunk deeper in mire. Too much 
mire and misery at last ! However, if she had cour- 
age ! 

It was while looking at the great blue lake, the snowy 
swans, the gleaming barks, that she dreamed, as she had 
just told Vaudrey, of making an end of all. Madness, 
worse than that, stupidity ! One does not kill one’s self 
at her age ; one does not make of beauty a valueless draft. 
In order to occupy herself, she had bought some brown 
bread which she mechanically threw to the ducks, in 
order to draw her out of herself. It was then that Sul- 
pice saw her. 

“ Assuredly,” she thought, as she left the minister, 
“ those who despair are idiots ! ” 

In fact, it seemed that chance, as her fingers had cast 
mouthfuls of bread to the hungry bills, — had thrown 
Vaudrey to her in place of Rosas. 

A minister ! that young man who smiled on her just 
now in the alleys of the Bois and drew near her with 
trembling breath, was a minister. A minister as popular 
as Vaudrey, was a power, and since Marianne, weary of 
seeking love, was pursuing an actuality quite as difficult 
to obtain — riches — Sulpice unquestionably was not to be 
despised. 


234 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ As a last resource, one might find worse,” thought 
Marianne, as she entered her home. 

She had not, moreover, hesitated long. She was not 
in the mood for prolonged anger. She was at an age 
when prompt decisions must be made on every occasion 
that life, with its harsh spurs, proposed a problem 
or furnished an opportunity. On the way between the 
Lake and Rue de Navarin, Marianne had formed her 
plan. Since she had to reply to Vaudrey, she would 
write him. She felt an ardent desire to avenge herself 
for Rosas’s treatment, as if he ought to suffer therefor, as 
if he were about to know that Sulpice loved her. 

Had she found the duke awaiting her, as she entered 
the house, she would have been quite capable of lashing 
his face with a whip, while making the lying confession : 

“ Ah ! you here ? It is too late ! I love Monsieur 
Vaudrey.” 

She would, moreover, never know any but gloomy 
feelings arising from her poverty in that house. The 
thought suggested itself to her of at once inviting Vau- 
drey to call on her. But surrounded by the vulgar ap- 
pointments of that poor, almost bare, studio, concealing 
her poverty under worn-out hangings, indifferent studies, 
old casts covered with dust and yellow, to receive Vau- 
drey there would be to confess her terribly straitened 
condition, her necessities, her eagerness, all that repels 
and freezes love. In glancing around her uncle’s studio, 
she scrutinized everything with an expression of hatred. 


PART FIRST 


2 35 

It smacked of dirty poverty, bourgeois ugliness. She 
would never dare to ask Vaudrey to sit upon that divan, 
which was littered with old, torn books and tobacco 
dust, and which, when he sat upon it, discharged a cloud 
of dust whose atoms danced in the sunlight. 

“What are you looking at? ” asked Kayser, as he fol- 
lowed his niece’s glances about the room. “ You seem 
to be making an inspection.” 

“Precisely. And I am thinking that your studio 
would not fetch a very high figure at Drouot’s auction 
mart.” 

“ Lofty and moral creations don’t sell in times like 
these,” gravely replied the old dauber. “ For myself, I am 
not a painter of obscene subjects and lewd photography.” 

Marianne shrugged her shoulders and went out, cough- 
ing involuntarily. Old Kayser passed his time steeped 
in the odors of nicotine. 

“ I am lost, if Vaudrey comes here,” she said to her- 
self. 

She knew well enough that caprice, the love of those 
who do not love, lives on luxury, intoxicating perfumes, 
shimmering silk, and all the mysterious surroundings of 
draperies which are the accompaniment of the adven- 
ture. Vaudrey would recoil before this Bohemian 
studio. The famous “nimbus,” of which Kayser spoke, 
was the creature of his tobacco smoke. What was to be 
done, then? Receive the minister yonder in that remote 
apartment where, all alone, — it was true — she went to 


236 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

dream, dream with all the strange joys attending isola- 
tion ? Draw this man to a distant corner of Paris, in 
the midst of the ruins of former luxury, as mean as the 
wretch’s studio ? — Eh ! that was to acknowledge to 
Vaudrey that she was intriguing for a liaison with the 
single object of quitting the prison-walls of want. She 
realized that this man, full of illusions, believing that he 
had to do with perhaps a virtuous girl, or, at least, one 
who was not moving in her own circle, who was giving 
herself, but not selling herself, would shrink at the reality 
on finding himself face to face with an adventuress. 

“ Illusion is everything ! He must be deceived ! 
They are all stupid ! ” she mused. 

But how was she to deceive this man as to her condi- 
tion, how cloak her want, how cause herself to pass for 
what she was not? With Rosas it would have been a 
simple matter. Poor, she presented herself to him in 
her poverty. He loved her so. She could the better 
mislead him. But with Vaudrey, on the contrary, she 
must dazzle. 

“Two innocents,” Marianne said to herself, “the one 
thirsts for virtue, the other for vice.” 

Should she confess everything to Sulpice as she had 
done to Rosas? Yes, perhaps, if she discovered no 
better way, but a better plan had to be found, sought, 
or invented. Find what? Borrow? Ask? Whom? 
Guy ? She would not dare to do so, even supposing that 
Lissac was sufficiently well off. Then she wished to 


PART FIRST 


237 

keep up appearances, even in Guy’s eyes. Further, she 
had never forgiven him for running off to Italy. She 
never would forget it. No, no, she would ask nothing 
from Guy. 

To whom, then, should she apply? She again found 
herself in the frightful extremity of those who, in that 
almost limitless Paris, involved in the terrible intricacies 
of that madly-directed machine, seek money, a loan, 
some help, an outstretched hand, but who find nothing, 
not an effort to help them in all its crowd. She was 
overcome with rage and hatred. Nothing ! she had noth- 
ing ! She would have sold herself to any person what- 
soever, to have speedily obtained a few of the luxuries 
she required. Yes; sold herself now, to sell herself 
more dearly to-morrow. 

Sold ! Suddenly from the depths of her memory she 
recalled a form, confused at first, but quickly remem- 
bered vividly, of an old woman against whom she had 
formerly jostled, in the chance life she had led, and 
who, once beautiful, and still clever and rich, it was said, 
had been seized with a friendly desire to protect Mari- 
anne. It was a long time since the young woman had 
thought of Claire Dujarrier. She met her occasionally, 
her white locks hidden under a copious layer of golden 
powder, looking as yellow as sawdust. The old woman 
had said to her : 

“ Whenever you need advice or assistance, do not for- 
get my address : Rue La Fontaine, Auteuil.” 


238 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

Marianne had thanked her at the time, and had for- 
gotten all about it till now, when in the anguish of her 
pursuit she recalled the name and features of Claire Du- 
jarrier as from the memories of yesterday. Claire 
Dujarrier, a former danseuse, whose black eyes, dia- 
monds, wild extravagance, and love adventures were 
notorious formerly, had for the last two or three years 
buried herself in a little house, fearing that she would be 
assassinated ; she kept her diamonds in iron-lined safes 
built in the wall, and had a young lover, a clerk in a 
novelty store, who was stronger than a market-house 
porter, and who from time to time assumed a high tone 
and before whom she stood in awe. 

“ Claire Dujarrier! The very thing! — Why not?” 
thought Marianne. 

She had been introduced to the ex-danseuse by Guy 
de Lissac. He was considered as one of Claire’s old 
lovers. They quarrelled when the old dame had heard 
one of Guy’s bons mots that had become familiar at the 
Club: 

“ When I see her, I always feel a slight emotion : she 
recalls my youth to me ! — But alas ! not hers ! ” 

Claire was well-off and perhaps miserly. Marianne 
instinctively felt, however, that she would get help at 
her hands. 

Money ! 

“ I will return her all ! It is usury. Her pledge is 
here ! ” 


PART FIRST 


239 

With brazen front, Kayser’s niece struck her bosom, 
looking at the same time at the reflection of her fine 
bust and pale face in the mirror. 

The next day she went straight to the former dan- 
seuse’s. 

Claire Dujarrier lived in that long Rue La Fontaine 
at Auteuil which partook of the characteristics of a sub- 
urban main street and a provincial faubourg, with its 
summer villas, its little cottages enclosed within gloomy 
little gardens, railed-off flower-beds, boarding-schools for 
young people, and elbowing each other as in some 
village passage, the butcher’s store, the pharmacy, the 
wine-dealer’s shop, the baker’s establishment, — a kind 
of little summer resort with a forlorn look in February, 
the kiosks and cottages half decayed, the gardens full of 
faded, dreary-looking leaves. Marianne looked about, 
seeking the little Claire house. She had visited it for- 
merly. A policeman wandered along sadly, — as if to 
remind one of the town, — and on one side, a gardener 
passed scuffling his wooden shoes, as if to recall the 
village. 

However, here it was that the formerly celebrated 
girl, who awoke storms of applause when she danced 
beside Cerrito at the Op£ra, now lived buried in silence, 
— a cab going to the Villa Montmorency seemed an 
event in her eyes, — forgotten, her windows shut, and as a 
diversion looking through the shutters at the high chim- 
neys of some factory in the neighboring Rue Gras that 


240 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


belched forth their ruddy or bluish fumes, or yellow like 
sulphuric acid, or again red like the reflection of fire. 

Marianne rang several times when she arrived at the 
garden railing of the little house. The bells sounded as 
if they were coated with rust. An ancient maid-servant, 
astonished and morose, came to open the door. 

She conducted the young woman into the salon where 
Claire Dujarrier sat alone, eating cakes, with her terrier 
on her lap. 

The dog almost leaped at Marianne’s throat while 
Claire, rising, threw herself on her neck. 

“ Ah ! dear little one ! — How pleased I am ! What 
chance brings you?” 

Marianne looked at the Dujarrier. She might still be 
called almost lovely, although she was a little painted 
and her eyes were swollen, and her cheeks withered ; 
but she knew so perfectly well all the secrets for rejuve- 
nating, the eyebrow preparation, the labial wash, that 
she was a walking pharmaceutical painting done on 
finely sculptured features. The statue, although bur- 
dened with fat, was still superb. 

She listened to Marianne, smiled, frowned and, love- 
broker and advisory courtesan that she was, ended by 
saying to the “ little one ” that she had a devilish good 
chance and that she had arrived like March in Lent. 

“It is true, it has purposely happened. Vanda, you 
know her well? ” 

“ No ! ” answered Marianne. 


PART FIRST 


241 


“ What ! Vanda, whom that big viper Guy called the 
Walking Rain? ” 

“ I do not remember — ” 

“ Well ! Vanda has gone to Russia, she left a month 
ago. She will be there all the winter and summer, and 
part of next winter. Her general requires her. He is 
appointed to keep an eye on the Nihilists. So she 
wishes to rent her house in Rue Prony. That is very 
natural. A charming house. Very chic . In admirable 
taste. You have the chance. And not dear.” 

“ Too dear for me, who have nothing ! ” 

“ Little silly ! You have yourself,” said Claire Dujar- 
rier. “Then you have me, I have always liked you. 
I will lend you the ready cash to set yourself up, you 
can give me bills of exchange, little documents that your 
minister — pest ! you are going on well, you are, minis- 
ters ! — that His Excellency will endorse. Vanda will 
not expect anything after the first quarter. Provided 
that her house is well-rented to someone who does not 
spoil it, she will be satisfied. If she should claim all, 
why, at a pinch I can make up the amount. But, my 
dear,” — and the old woman lowered her voice, — “on 
no account say anything to Adolphe.” 

“ Adolphe? ” 

“ Yes, my husband. You do not know him? ” 

She took from the table a photograph enclosed in a 
photograph-case of sky-blue plush, in which Marianne 

recognized a swaggering fellow with flat face, large 
16 


242 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


hands, fierce, bushy moustache, who leaned on a cane, 
swelling out his huge chest in outline against a mean, 
gray-tinted garden ornamented with Medicis vases. 

“ A handsome fellow, isn’t he? Quite young! — and 
he loves me — I adore him, too ! ” 

The tumid eyes of Claire Dujarrier resembled lighted 
coals. She pressed kiss after kiss of her painted lips on 
the photograph and reverently laid it on the table. 

Marianne almost pitied this half-senile love, the 
courtesan’s terrifying, last love. 

She was, however, too content either to trouble her- 
self, or even to reflect upon it. She was wild with joy. 
It seemed to her that a sudden rift had opened before 
her and a gloriously sunny future pictured itself to her 
mind. What an inspiration it was to think of Claire 
Dujarrier. 

She would sign everything she wished, acknowledge 
the sums lent, with any interest that might be demanded. 
Much she cared about that, indeed ! — She was sure now 
to free herself and to succeed. 

“ You are jolly right,” said the ancient danseuse. “ The 
nest is entirely at the birds’ disposal. Your minister — I 
don’t ask his name, but I shall learn it by the bills of ex- 
change — would treat you as a grisette if he found you at 
your uncle’s. Whereas at Vanda’s — ah ! at Vanda’s ! you 
will have news to tell me. So, see this is all that is nec- 
essary. I will write to Vanda that her house is rented, and 
well rented. Kiss me and skip ! I hear Adolphe coming. 


PART FIRST 


243 

He does not care to see new faces. And then, yours is 
too pretty ! ” she added, with a peculiar significance. 

She got the old servant to show Marianne out 
promptly, as if she felt fearful lest her husband should 
see the pretty creature. Claire Dujarrier was certainly 
jealous. 

“ It is not I that would rob her of her porter ! ” Mari- 
anne thought, as she walked away from Rue La Fontaine. 

Evening was now darkening the gray streets. A faint 
bluish mist was rising over the river and spreading like 
breath over the quays. Marianne saw Paris in the dis- 
tance, and her visit seemed like a dream to her ; she 
closed her eyes, and a voice within her whispered con- 
fusedly the names of Rosas, Vaudrey, Vanda, Rue Prony, 
she pictured herself stretched at length on a reclining 
chair in the luxurious house of a courtesan, and she saw 
at her feet that man — a minister — who supplicatingly be- 
sought her favor, while in the distance a man who 
resembled Rosas, was travelling, moving away, dis- 
appearing — 

“Nonsense!” the superstitious creature said to her- 
self, “ it was one or the other ! The duke or the minister ! 
I have not made the choice.” 

Then looking at the confused image of herself thrown 
on the window of the cab, she threw a kiss at her own 
pale reflection, happy with the unbounded joy of a child, 
and cried aloud while laughing heartily : 

“ Bonjour, Vanda ! I greet you, Mademoiselle Vanda.” 


PART SECOND 







PART SECOND 


I 


The Monceau plain is the quarter of changed fortunes 
and dice-throwing. An entire town given over to luxury, 
born in a single night, suddenly sprung into existence. 
The unpremeditated offspring of the aggregation of mil- 
lions. Instead of the cobbler’s stall, the red-bedaubed 
shop of the dealer in wines, the nakedness of an outer 
boulevard ; here in this spot of earth all styles flourish : 
the contrast of fancy, the chateau throwing the English 
cottage in the shade ; the Louis XIII. dwelling hob- 
nobbing with the Flemish house ; the salamander of 
Francis I. hugging the bourgeois tenement ; the Gothic 
gateway opening for the entry of the carriages of the 
courtesan. A town within a town. Something novel, 
white, extravagant, overdone : the colossal in proximity 
to the attractive, the vastness of a grand American 
hotel casting its shadow over an Italian loggia. It par- 
took at once of the Parisian and the Yankee. The 

2 47 


248 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

Chateau de Chambord sheltering a chocolate maker, and 
the studio of an artist now become the salon of a rich 
curbstone broker. 

The little Hotel de Vanda , — one of our charming fugi- 
tives, as those of the chroniclers who still remember 
Vanda, say of her in their articles sometimes — is an ele- 
gant establishment, severe in external appearance, but 
of entirely modern interior arrangements, with a wealth 
of choice knickknacks, and is regarded as one of the most 
attractive houses in Rue Prony. Since the flight of the 
pretty courtesan, it bears the sad notice : Residence to let. 
Its fast closed shutters give it the gloomy appearance of a 
deserted boudoir. Complete silence succeeds feverish 
bustle ! Vanda was a boisterous, madcap spendthrift. 
Through the old windows with their old-fashioned panes 
there often used to escape snatches of song, airs of 
waltzes, fragments of quadrilles. Vanda’s horses pawed 
the ground spiritedly as they started at the fashionable 
hour for the Bois, through the great gateway leading to 
the stables. And now, for months, a corner of Rue 
Prony had been silent and drowsy, and weighted with 
the melancholy that surrounds forsaken objects. 

It was here that Marianne, in carrying out her deter- 
mination, entered with a high head, resolved to cast off 
her sombre misery or to sink, her plans defeated. The 
Dujarrier had greatly assisted her in taking up her abode, 
building her hopes on Mademoiselle Kayser’s beauty as 
on some temporary profitable investment. As the old 


PART SECOND 


249 

woman looked at her, she shook her head. Marianne 
had to be quick. She was pale, already weary, and her 
beauty, heightened by this weariness, was “ in full blast,” 
as the former bungling artiste said in her capacity as a 
connoisseur. 

“ After all,” Dujarrier said to herself, “ it is the favor- 
able moment for success. One does not become a 
general except through seniority.” 

Marianne also experienced the same feelings as the 
Dujarrier. She realized that she had reached the turn- 
ing-point of her life, it was like a game of baccarat that 
she was playing with fate. She might come out of it 
rich and preserved from the possibility of dying in a 
hospital or a hovel after having dragged her tattered 
skirts through the streets, or overwhelmed with debts, 
ruined forever, strangled by liabilities. This commer- 
cial term made her smile ironically when she thought of 
it. Against her she had her past, her adventurous life, 
almost the life of a courtesan, carried away by the cur- 
rent of her amorous whims ; it now needed only the bur- 
den of liabilities for her to become not only completely 
disclassed, but ruined by Parisian life. She had given 
the Dujarrier receipts for all that that quasi-silent-partner 
had advanced her, the old lady excusing herself for the 
precaution she took by saying precisely : 

“ In that way one can hold people. Grateful acknowl- 
edgments are good ; written acknowledgments are 
better ! ” 


250 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


The Dujarrier considered herself witty. 

Marianne had signed, moreover, all that the other had 
asked. She still needed, indeed, to make further outlay. 
And what mattered it if she plunged deeper while she 
was taking a dive , as she expressed it in her language, 
which was a mixture of street slang and the elegant 
phraseology of the salon. 

“ Bah ! I know how to swim.” 

She suddenly straightened herself under this anxiety, 
reassured, moreover, and spurred on as she was by the 
Dujarrier herself, who said as she shrugged her shoulders : 

“ When a woman like you has a man like Vaudrey, — 
a minister, — she has her nest lined.” 

Sulpice was not the man long to resist so refined a 
Parisienne as Marianne. In him, the repressed ardors, 
the poetic ideas of a man of twenty, had become the 
appetites of a man of forty. This provincial, hungry for 
Parisianism, — very young in feelings and soul, — felt, as 
soon as he found himself in Marianne’s company, mad 
with desire for a new life. The dazzling honors attend- 
ing his entry into the ministry found their culmination in 
the burning glance of Marianne, as their eyes met. 

Hardly was she installed in Rue Prony than she re- 
minded him of his promise to call on her. He hastened 
to her with strange eagerness and he left her more dis- 
turbed, as if he had just taken a peep at an unknown 
world. The feminine elegance of the Hotel de Vanda 
had suddenly intoxicated him. Marianne played her 


PART SECOND 


25 1 

part very calmly in producing the daily ravage that pas- 
sion was making on Sulpice. She studied its rapid 
progress with all the sang-froid of a physician. She 
regulated the doses of her toxicant, the poison of her 
glance instilled into the veins of this man. Determined 
to become his mistress, she desired to fall in the guise of 
a woman madly in love, and not as an ordinary courte- 
san. With any other man than Vaudrey, she would, 
perhaps, have yielded more quickly. But she acted with 
Vaudrey as formerly she had done with Rosas. Seeing 
that these idealists caressed their dreams, she coquetted 
with platonic love, besides, she preferred to remain free 
for a short time, without the burden of those pleasures 
of which she had grown tired, and which had always 
caused her more disgust than delight. 

Moreover, she said to herself that it was necessary in 
Sulpice’s case to have the appearance of playing frankly, 
of loving truly, as in the case of Rosas. But, this time, 
she would not let Vaudrey escape her by flight, as the 
duke did. She would yield at the desired moment, cer- 
tain that Sulpice would not leave her the next day. 

“ Rosas would be here,” she said to herself self-confi- 
dently, “ if he had been my lover.” 

After a moment of regretful preoccupation, she 
shrugged her shoulders and said quickly : 

“ Bah ! what is written is ivritten , as he said. If I 
haven’t him, I have the other.” 

The “other ” grew day by day more deeply enamored. 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


252 

He rushed off in hot haste to visit Marianne ; his hired 
hack, in which he sometimes left his minister’s portfolio 
peacefully at rest, pending his return, stood before the 
little door in the Avenue Prony. He was happier when 
he thought he had made a forward step in Marianne’s 
affections than when he had acquired new votes from the 
minority in the Chamber. Ambitious projects yielded to 
the consuming desire that he felt toward this woman. 
At the ministry, during the familiar conversations at 
table with Adrienne and even during the hurly-burly 
attendant on private receptions and morning interviews, 
he sometimes remained silent, lost in thought, his mind 
wandering and, in reality, with Marianne. 

Adrienne, at such times, with a sweet smile which 
made Sulpice shudder with remorse, would beseech him 
to work less, to take some recreation, and not allow him- 
self to be so absorbed in politics. 

“You are extremely pale, I assure you. You look 
worn out. You work too hard.” 

“ It is due to administrative changes. There are so 
many documents to examine.” 

“ I know that very well, but isn’t Monsieur Warcolier 
there? In what way does he help you? ” 

“ In no way,” replied the minister sharply, speaking 
with truth. 

Public affairs, in fact, absorbed him, and he found it 
necessary to steal the precious time to make a hasty trip 
to Rue Prony. A vacation, it is true, was near. In less 


PART SECOND 


2 53 

than a month, Vaudrey would have more time at his dis- 
posal. But for more than three weeks yet, the minister 
would have everything to modify and change, — every- 
thing to put into a healthy shape, as Warcolier said — in 
the Hotel Beauvau. 

What matter ! He found the time to fly incognito to 
the Maison de Vanda, leaving his coup£ at the ministry. 
Marianne was always there for him when he arrived. 
The male domestic or the femme de chambre received 
him with all the deference that “domestics ” show when 
they suspect that the visitor brings any kind of subsidy 
to the house. To Vaudrey, there was a sort of mystery 
in Mademoiselle Kayser’s life. Ramel, who knew her 
uncle Kayser, had told him of the poverty of the painter. 
How then, seeing that her uncle was so shabby, could 
the niece be so sumptuously established ? 

Kayser, whom he had once met at Marianne’s, had 
answered such a question by remarking that his niece 
was a sly puss who understood life thoroughly and would 
be sure to make headway. But that was all. 

“ I have suspected for a long time that that little head 
was not capable of much,” the painter had added. “ I 
considered her a light-headed creature, nothing more. 
Fool that I was ! she is a shrewd woman, a clever 
woman, a true woman. I only find fault with her for 
one thing.” 

“ What ? ” asked Vaudrey. 

“ Do you ask what, Monsieur le Ministre ? The style 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


254 

of her establishment. It is flashy, tawdry, noisy, it is 
boudoir art. It lacks seriousness ! It lacks morality ! I 
would have in it figures that have style, character. I 
don’t ask for saintly pictures, but moral allegories, austere 
art. I only understand the severe in art. I am a puri- 
tan in the matter of the brush. For that reason, I shall 
attain nothing in these days of genre and water-color 
painting.” 

And Kayser went on painting allegories, to digest his 
dinner, the pate de foie gras, washed down with kummel 
which he had just partaken of at his niece’s. 

Vaudrey himself viewed these Japanese trifles, these 
screens, these carpets, these pedestals surmounted by 
terra-cotta figures presenting in their nudity the flesh 
tints of woman, those clock-cases above the doors, that 
profusion of knickknacks, of furniture, of ottomans, that 
soft upholstery that seemed to be made only to excuse a 
fall — nay, even urged to sudden temptations, to chance 
love, to violent caprices; and on leaving the house, 
where he had only spoken to Marianne in compliments 
a hundred times repeated, and where she had but re- 
echoed sarcasms full of tender, double meanings, as a 
woman who would undoubtedly yield but would not offer 
herself, he bore away with him in his nostrils and, as 
it were, in his clothes, a permeating, feminine odor, 
which would now follow him everywhere, and everywhere 
floated about him in whiffs, urging him to return to that 
house in which a new world seemed to be opening to him. 


PART SECOND 


2 55 

He would not long persist in enquiring how Marianne 
Kayser had procured all those baubles that so highly in- 
censed the puritan instincts of her honest uncle. He 
found himself urged forward with profound delight in this 
adventure whose mysterious features pleased him. Bah ! 
the very fact that he found so much inexplicable in the 
life of this woman enticed him all the more. It seemed 
to him that not only had he entered upon a romantic 
course, but that he was himself the hero of the romance. 
Never, in the days when he rolled about, an unknown 
student, on the Parisian wave, and had lifted his 
thoughts toward some pale patrician girl, toward some 
pretty creature he had caught a glimpse of, leaning back 
in a dark-blue coupe, or framed in by the red velvet 
hangings of a proscenium box, had he more perfectly 
incarnated the ideal of his desire than in so charming a 
creature. Dreams of power, visions of love of his twen- 
tieth year, had now become tangible to him and at forty 
he stretched out his feverish hand toward them all. 

“ Could Ramel have been right? ” he said to himself, 
“and I, only a provincial, athirst for Parisine? But 
what matter? Let Mademoiselle Kayser be what she 
will and I what I may be, it seems to me that I have 
never loved any one as I love this woman.” 

“ Not even Adrienne,” added a faint, trembling voice 
from within. But Sulpice had a ready answer to stifle 
it : Adrienne could not be compared with any creature 
in the world. Adrienne was the charm, the daily corn- 


256 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

fort of the domestic hearth. She was the wife, not the 
“ woman.” She was the darling, not the love. Vaudrey 
would have severed one of his arms to spare her any 
heavy sorrow, but he was not anxious about Adrienne. 
She knew nothing, she would know nothing. And what 
fault, moreover, had he committed hitherto? In that 
word hitherto , a host of mental reservations were in- 
volved that Sulpice would gladly have obliterated with 
his nails, he was ready to cry out with the same good faith, 
— that of the husband who deceives the wife whom he 
loves : 

“What wrong have I done? ” 

One afternoon, — there was no session of the Chamber 
that day, — Marianne was seated in her little salon. She 
was warming the tips of her slippers that furtively 
peeped from beneath the lace of her skirt, as a little 
bird might protrude its beak from a nest, — her right leg 
crossed over the other, and she appeared to be musing, 
her chin resting on her delicate hand. 

She was weary. Justine, her recently engaged femme 
de chambre, who, like the silverware, was provided by 
the Dujarrier, came to announce with the discreet, ban- 
tering little smile of servants, that Monsieur Dachet, the 
upholsterer, had called twice. 

“ The upholsterer ! ” 

Marianne frowned slightly. 

“What did he say? ” 

“ Nothing, that he would return to-morrow.” 


PART SECOND 


257 

“You call that nothing?” said Marianne, with a short 
laugh. 

When Justine had left the room, she went straight to 
a small, black, Italian cabinet inlaid with ivory, of which 
one drawer was locked. In opening it, the sound of 
gold coins rattling on the wood caused her to smile ; 
then, with the tips of her white fingers, she spread out 
the louis at the bottom of the drawer, which she ab- 
ruptly closed, making a wry face, and folding her arms, 
she returned to her seat in front of the fire, beating her 
right foot nervously upon the wrought-iron fender. 

“The Dujarrier’s money will not go much further,” 
she thought. “ It is finished.” 

She thought of striking a decisive blow. Up to the 
present time, her relations with Sulpice had floated in 
the regions of the sentimentalities of the novel, or of 
romance. The minister believed himself loved for 
love’s sake. He saw in Marianne only an eccentric girl 
free from all prejudices and every duty, who disposed of 
her life as seemed best to her, without being under the 
necessity of accounting to either husband or lover. 
Free, she made of her liberty pleasure or passion ac- 
cording to her fancy. The frightful, practical questions, 
the daily necessities, were lost sight of by this man who 
was burdened with the governmental question of France. 
Again, he never asked himself the source of Marianne’s 
luxury. He delighted in it without thinking of analyzing 
anything or of knowing anything, and this ingenuously. 
17 


258 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

Mademoiselle Kayser’s first word must necessarily awaken 
him to the situation. 

She knew that Vaudrey was to come, and suddenly 
leaving the fire, she arrayed herself for him in a black 
satin peignoir lined with red surah, with lapels of velvet 
thrown widely apart and allowing the whiteness of her 
neck and chest to be seen under folds of old lace. Her 
fair hair fell upon her velvet collar, and surmounting this 
strange costume, her pale face against the background 
of the red-draped salon assumed the disturbing charm 
of an apparition. 

On seeing her, Sulpice could not refrain from stop- 
ping short and looking at her in admiration. Seated 
there, in the centre of her salon, she was awaiting him 
and arranging bundles of papers in a basket with gilded 
feet and lined with pink satin. She extended her hand 
to him. It was a pale hand, as inanimate as the hand 
of a dead person, and she languidly asked him why he 
remained there stupefied without approaching her. 

“I am looking,” said the minister. 

“You are always the most gallant of men,” said 
Marianne. 

“You are not already tired then of looking at me? 
Usually, caprices do not last so long.” 

“The affection that I have for you is not a caprice.” 

“What is it, then? I am curious — ” 

“It is a passion, Marianne, an absolute, deep, mad 
passion — ” 


PART SECOND 


2 59 

“Oh! nonsense! nonsense!” said Marianne. “I 
know that you speak wonderfully well, I have heard you 
in the tribune. A declaration of love costs you no 
more than a ministerial declaration. But to-day, my 
dear minister, I am not disposed to listen to it even 
from you.” 

In these last words, there was a certain tenderness 
that in a measure modified the expression of weariness 
or sulkiness which Marianne suggested. Sulpice in- 
ferred therefrom an implied acceptance of his proffered 
love. 

“ Yes,” said she abruptly ; “ I am very sad, frightfully 
sad.” 

“ Without a cause? ” asked Vaudrey. 

She shrugged her shoulders^ 

“ Oh ! I am not of those who allow their nerves to 
control them. When I am out of sorts, there is in- 
variably a cause. Let that be understood once for 
all.” 

“ And the cause ? — I should be delighted to learn it, 
Marianne, for I swear to you that I would always bear 
a half of your troubles and pains.” 

“Thanks ! — But in life there are troubles so common- 
place that one could only acknowledge them to the most 
intimate friends.” 

“ You have no more devoted friend than I am,” replied 
Vaudrey, in a tone that conveyed unmistakable convic- 
tion. 


2 6o HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

She knew it positively. She could read that heart like 
an open page. 

“ When one meets friends like you, one is the more 
solicitous to keep them and to avoid saddening them 
with stupid affairs.” 

“But why?” asked Vaudrey, drawing close to Ma- 
rianne. “What troubles you? I beseech you to tell 
me ! ” 

He gazed earnestly at her eyes, seeking in the depths 
of her blue orbs a secret or a confession that evaded 
him, and with an instinctive movement he seized Ma- 
rianne’s hands which she abandoned to him ; they were 
quite cold. As he bent toward her to plead with her to 
speak, he felt her gentle breath, inhaled the perfume of 
her delicate, fair skin, and saw the exquisite curves of 
her body outlined beneath the black folds of her satin 
peignoir. Marianne’s knee gently pressed his own while 
her heavy eyelids fell like veils over the young woman’s 
eyes, in which Vaudrey thought he observed tears. 

“ Marianne, I entreat you, if you have any sorrow 
whatever, that I can assuage, I pray you, tell me of 
it ! ” 

“ Eh ! if it were a sorrow ! — ” she said, quickly with- 
drawing he? left hand from Sulpice’s warm grasp. “ But 
it is worse : it is a financial worry, yes, financial,” she 
said brusquely, on observing that Vaudrey’s face depicted 
astonishment. 

She seized the handful of papers that she had thrown 


PART SECOND 


261 


into the work-basket, and said in a tone that was expres- 
sive of mingled wrath and disgust : 

“There now, you see that? They are bills for this 
house : the accounts of clamorous creditors, upholsterers, 
locksmiths, builders and I don’t know what besides! ” 

“ What ! your house ? ” 

“You thought that I had paid for it? It is a rented 
one and nothing in it is paid for. I owe for all, and to 
a hungry pack.” 

She began to laugh. 

“ Do you imagine then that old Kayser’s niece could 
lead this life in which* you see her? Without a sou, 
should I possess all that you see here? — No ! — I have 
perpetrated the folly of ordering all these things for 
which I am now indebted and which must be paid for 
at once, and now I am about to be sued. There ! you 
were determined to urge me to confess all that — Such 
are my worries and they are not yours, so I ask your 
pardon, my dear Vaudrey : so let us talk of something 
else. Well ! how did the Fraynais interpellation turn 
out? — What has taken place in the Chamber? ” 

“ Let us speak only of you, Marianne,” said the min- 
ister, who looked at the young woman with a sort of 
frank compassion as a friendly physician looks at a sick 
person. 

She nervously snapped her fingers and with her feet 
crossed, beat the little feverish march that she had pre- 
viously done. 


262 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


He drew still closer to her, trying to calm her and to 
obtain some explanation, some information from her; 
and Marianne, as if she had already yielded in at once 
confiding her secret unreflectingly, refused at present to 
accord him the full measure of her confidence. She 
repeated that nothing that could be a source of annoy- 
ance or sordid, ought to sadden her friends. Besides, 
one ought to draw the line at one’s life-secret. She was 
entitled, in fact, to maintain silence. That Vaudrey 
should question her so, caused her horrible suffering. 

“ And you, Marianne,” he said, “you torture me much 
more by not replying to me, to whom the least detail of 
your life is interesting. To me who see you preoccupied 
and distressed, when I wish, I swear to you, to banish 
all your sadness.” 

She turned toward him with an abrupt movement 
and with her gray, gold-speckled eyes flashing, she 
seemed to yield to a violent, sudden and almost invol- 
untary decision and said to Sulpice : 

“ Then you wish to know even the wretchedness of 
my life ? So be it ! But I warn you that it is not very 
cheerful. For,” said she, after a moment’s silence, — 
Sulpice shuddered under her glance,— “ it is better to 
be frank, and if you love me as you say you do, you 
should know me thoroughly ; you can then decide what 
course to take. For myself, I am accustomed to de- 
ception.” 

Ah ! although this woman were ready to tell him every- 


PART SECOND 263 

thing, Vaudrey felt sure that her confidence could only 
intensify the love that he felt. She had risen, her arms 
were crossed over her black gown whose red velvet 
trimming suggested open wounds, her ardent eyes were 
in strong contrast with her pale face, her lips of unusually 
heightened color expressed a strange sensuality that invited 
a kiss, while her nostrils dilated under the impulse of 
bitter anger — standing thus, she began to narrate her 
life to Vaudrey who was seated in front of her, looking 
up to her — as if at her knees. Her story was a sad one 
of a wicked childhood, ignorant youth, wasted early 
years, melancholy, sins, outbursts of faith, falls, returns 
of love, pride, virtue, restitution through repentance, 
scourged hopes, dead confidences, the entire heartrending 
existence of a woman who had left more of her heart 
than of the flesh of her body clinging to the nails of her 
calvaries — that, though ordinary and commonplace, was 
so cruel in its truth that it appealed at once to Sulpice’s 
heart, a heart bursting with pity, to that credulous man 
who was attracted by all that seemed to him so exquis- 
itely painful and new about this woman. 

“Perhaps I am worrying you?” she asked abruptly. 

“ You ! ” said he. 

He looked at her with a tear in his eye. 

Marianne’s eyes gleamed with a sudden light. 

“ Well ! ” she said, “ such is my life ! I have loved, I 
have been betrayed. I have had faith in some one and 
I awakened one fine morning with this prospect before 


264 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

me : to sink in the deep mud or to do like so many others, 
— to take a lover and save myself through luxury, since I 
could not recover myself through passion. Bah ! the 
world shows more leniency toward those who succeed 
than toward those who repent. All that is necessary is 
to succeed, and on my word — you know Monsieur de 
Rosas well? ” 

“ No,” stammered Vaudrey, before whose mind the 
duke’s blond face appeared. 

“ You heard him the other evening ! ” 

“ I mean that I have never spoken to him. Well ! 
what of Monsieur de Rosas? ” 

“ Monsieur de Rosas loved me. Oh ! ” she said, in- 
terrupting a gesture made by Vaudrey, “ wait. He said 
that he loved me. He is rich. Why should I not have 
been Rosas’s mistress ? Deal for deal, that was a good 
bargain, at least ! I accept Rosas ! It was to receive 
him that I was foolish enough to make my purchases 
without reckoning, without knowing. What’s that for a 
Rosas? ” she said, as she crushed the bundle of bills be- 
tween her fingers. 

“And — Monsieur de Rosas?” asked Vaudrey, who 
was quite pale. 

“ He?” 

Marianne laughed. 

“Well, he has gone — I have told you as much. He 
has, moreover, perhaps, done wisely. I regretted him 
momentarily — but, bah ! I should have sent him away — 


PART SECOND 265 

yes, very quickly, just so ! without even allowing him to 
touch the tips of my fingers.” 

“Rosas?” repeated the minister, looking keenly into 
Marianne’s eyes. 

“ Rosas ! ” she again said, lowering her voice. “And 
do you know why I would have done that? ” 

“ No — ” answered Sulpice trembling. 

“ Simply because I no longer loved him, and that I 
loved another.” 

She had spoken these last words slowly and in such 
passionate, vibrating tones that Sulpice felt himself shud- 
der with delight. 

“Ah,” he said, as he went toward her, “is that the 
reason? Truly, Marianne, is that the reason ? ” 

She had not said that she was in love, she had only 
spoken by her looks. But Sulpice felt that he belonged 
to her, he was burning with passion, transported, insane 
from this avowal ; his hands sought hers and drew her to 
him. He clasped her to his bosom, intoxicated by the 
pressure of this body against his own, and added in a 
very low tone while his fingers alternately wandered over 
her satiny neck and her silky hair : 

“ How can I help loving you, Marianne? Is it true, 
really true ? You love me ? — Ah ! what the great noble- 
man has not done, do you think I cannot do ? You are in 
your own home, you understand, Marianne — Then, as he 
touched the young woman’s exquisite ears with his lips, 
he added : 


266 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ Our home — will you have it so? — Our home ! — ” 

He felt, as she remained in his embrace with her 
body leaning against his, that she quivered throughout 
her frame ; his lips wandered from her ear to her cheek 
and then to her lips, there they rested long in a ravish- 
ing kiss that filled him with the languishing sensation of 
swooning, he holding her so tightly that, with a smile, she 
disengaged herself, pink with her blushes, and bright- 
eyed, said, with an expression of peculiar delight : 

“ It is sealed now ! ” 

Sulpice, even in his youthful days, had never felt so 
intoxicating a sensation as that which he enjoyed to-day. 
It was a complete abandonment of himself, a forgetful- 
ness of everything in the presence of his absolute intoxi- 
cation. All the realities of life that were ready to take 
possession of him on leaving this place melted before 
this dream : the possession of that woman. He forgot the 
assembly, the foyer, that human crowd that he ruled from 
the height of the tribune, and Adrienne, who was seated 
yonder at the window, awaiting him. He forgot every- 
thing. Like those who possess the singular faculty of 
easily receiving and losing impressions, he fancied that 
his horizon was limited to these walls with their silken 
hangings, these carpets, this feminine salon, opening on 
a boudoir, a retreat whence escaped the odors of flowers 
and perfume bottles. 

Then, too, a special feeling of pride entered his heart. 
He felt his joy increased tenfold at the thought that he^ 


PART SECOND 267 

the petty bourgeois from Grenoble, had snatched this 
woman from a duke and, like a great nobleman, had paid 
the debts that she had contracted. He raised his head 
proudly from an instinctive impulse of vanity. Rosas ! 
He, the son of honest Dauphiny folks, would crush him 
with his liberality. 

“ What shall I do to silence those creditors? ” he said 
to Marianne, — whose hands he held and whose face 
grazed his in a way that almost made him frantic. 

“ Nothing,” she replied. “ What you have promised 
me is enough. Now I feel that I am saved. Our house, 
you said so, we are in our own house here. If the cred- 
itors will not believe me when I tell them to have 
patience — ” 

“ They will believe you,” said Vaudrey. “Come, we 
will find the means — On my signature, any one will 
lend me money.” 

It seemed that Marianne was expecting this word 
money , coarse but eloquent, in order to tell Vaudrey that 
an old friend, Claire Dujarrier, was on intimate terms 
with a certain Adolphe Gochard, who upon the endorse- 
ment of a responsible person, would certainly advance a 
hundred thousand francs that he had at this moment 
lying idle. Gochard only needed a bill of exchange in 
his favor for one hundred thousand francs at three 
months’ date, plus interest at five per cent. This Go- 
chard was a very straightforward capitalist, who did not 
make it a business to lend money, but merely to oblige. 


268 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


It was Madame Dujarrier who had introduced him and 
Marianne would have already availed herself of his cour- 
tesy, if she had believed herself able to repay it at the 
appointed date. 

“And where does this Monsieur Gochard live?” 
Vaudrey promptly asked. 

“ Oh ! it would not be necessary for you to go to see 
him,” replied Marianne. “ On receipt of a bill of ex- 
change from me, Madame Dujarrier would undertake to 
let me have a hundred thousand francs from hand to 
hand.” 

“A hundred thousand francs! — In three months,” 
said Vaudrey to himself, “ in a vast placer like Paris, one 
can find many veins of gold.” 

He had, besides, his personal property and land in 
Dauphiny. If need be, without Adrienne’s even know- 
ing it, he could mortgage his farms at Saint-Laurent- 
du-Pont ! 

“ Monsieur de Rosas w T ould not have hesitated. But 
in his case there would have been no merit,” said 
Mademoiselle Kayser. 

At the name of that man, coupled with the recollec- 
tion of him, Sulpice felt himself spurred to a decision. 
Clearly the great millionaire noble would not have de- 
layed before snatching this woman from the claws of her 
creditors. A hundred thousand francs, a mere trifle for 
the count ! Well, Vaudrey would give it as the Spaniard 
would have done. He would find it. Within three 


PART SECOND 269 

months, he would have put everything right; he did 
not know how, but that mattered little. 

“ Have you a pen, Marianne ? ” 

The minister had not noticed the sheet of white paper 
that was lying on the blotting pad of Russia leather, 
among the satin finished envelopes and the ivory paper- 
cutters. 

“ What are you going to do, my friend? ” 

She pretended to put away the green, sharkskin pen- 
holder lying near the inkstand, but drew it imperceptibly 
nearer to Sulpice, who with a quick movement had already 
seated himself in front of the secretaire. 

“ A minister’s signature is sufficient, I suppose ? ” he 
said with a smile. 

He commenced to write. 

“What did you say? — Gochard? — ” 

She was quite pale as she looked over Sulpice’s shoulder 
and saw him rapidly write several lines on the paper, 
then she spelled : 

Adolphe Gochard — Go-go-c-h-ar-d.” 

“ There it is ! ” he said, as he handed her the sheet of 
paper. 

“ I wish to know what is thereon, or I would never 
consent.” 

She took the paper between her fingers as if to tear it 
to pieces. Sulpice prevented her. 

“ No,” he said, “ I request you to keep it ; it is the 
best reply you can give to those people. — Rely on me ! ” 


270 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ Do you wish it? ” asked Marianne, with a toss of her 
head, speaking in a very sweet voice. 

“ Decidedly. It is selfish, but I wish to feel myself 
not a little at home here,” Sulpice replied. 

He seized her hands, her plump, soft, coaxing hands, 
and as he clasped them within his own, he carried them 
to his lips and kissed them, as well as her face, neck, 
ear and mouth, which he covered with kisses ; and Ma- 
rianne, still holding the satin paper that the minister had 
just signed, said with a laugh as she feebly defended herself : 

“ Come — come — have done with it ! Oh ! the big 
boy ! — You will leave nothing for another time ! ” 

He left the house, his head was swimming, and he 
was permeated with strong odors. He flung to the 
coachman an address half-way to the ministry. 

“ Place de la Madeleine.” 

“ He shut his eyes to picture Marianne. 

As soon as she was alone, her lips curled as a smile 
of satisfied vanity played over them. She began by 
reading the lines that he had so hastily written : I guar- 
antee to Monsieur Adolphe Go chard a bill of exchange 
at three months , if he agrees to advance that amount to 
Mademoiselle Dujarrier who will hand it to Mademoi- 
selle Marianne Kayser. 

“ Well ! the Dujarrier was right,” she said ; “ a woman’s 
scheming works easier than a sinapism.” 

Then, after a slight toss of the head and still smiling, 
she opened one of the drawers of the small Inaltia 


PART SECOND 


27 1 

cabinet and slipped into it the satin paper to which the 
minister had affixed his signature and which she had 
carefully folded four times. She considered that auto- 
graph worth a thousand times more gold than the few 
pieces that remained scattered about the drawer, like so 
many waifs of luxury. Then, slowly returning to her arm- 
chair, she sank into it, clasping her two hands behind 
her head and gazing at the ceiling, her thoughts wandered 
in dreams — a crowd of little ambitious thoughts passed 
through her brain like drifting clouds across the sky — 
and while with the top of her foot she again beat her 
nervous march on the hem of her petticoat, her lips, the 
lips whose fever had been taken away by Vaudrey, still 
preserved the strange turn of the corners that indicated 
the unsatiated person who sees, however, his opportunity 
arrive. 

She was as fully mistress of herself as Vaudrey was 
embarrassed and unbalanced. He seemed to hear voices 
laughing and singing within him and his brain was in- 
flamed with joy. Before him opened the immense 
prospects of his dreams. Glorious as it was to be all- 
powerful, it was better to be loved. Everything whirled 
about within his brain, he thought he still heard Denis 
Ramel talking to him, and in a twinkling, Marianne’s 
smiling face appeared, and with a kiss she interrupted 
the old journalist’s sallies, and Sulpice saw her, too, as 
it were half-fainting, through the window of her fiacre, 
like a pastel half- hidden beneath the glass. 


272 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


He was delighted to walk about for a moment when 
the carriage had set him down on the asphalted space 
that surrounds the Madeleine. The walk was beneficial. 
He raised his head instinctively, expanded his lungs with 
the air, and threw out his chest. He thought that people 
looked at him attentively. Some passers-by turned 
round to see him. He would have felt prouder to have 
heard them say : “ That is Mademoiselle Kayser’s lover ! ” 
than : “That is Monsieur Vaudrey, the minister ! ” 

He felt a kind of annoyance on returning to Place 
Beauvau. He was still with Marianne. He recalled 
her attitudes, her smile, the tone of her voice. Public 
matters now fastened their collar on him, there were 
signatures to be subscribed, reports to be read, telegrams, 
routine work ; in a word, vulgar professional duties were 
to be resumed. He did not at once go to his cabinet. 
Warcolier, the Under Secretary of State, received and 
despatched ordinary matters. 

Through some strange caprice, he felt a desire to see 
Adrienne very soon after leaving Marianne, perhaps to 
know how he would feel and if " cela se voyait ’’ as they 
say. There was also a feeling of remorse involved in 
this eagerness. He wished to satisfy himself that Adrienne 
was not suffering, and as formerly, to smile on her as if 
redoubled affection would, in his own eyes, obliterate his 
fault. 

Adrienne was in her salon. Sulpice heard the sound 
of voices beyond the door. Some one was talking. 
























































































































































































































































































































































































» • 




































- 





















































































































































































Marie del 


E. Wallet sc 














PART SECOND 


2 73 

“Madame has a visitor?” he inquired of the do- 
mestic. 

“Yes, Monsieur le Ministre — Monsieur de Lissac.” 

“ What ! Guy ! what chance brings him here ! ” Sulpice 
thought. 

He opened the door and entered, extending his hand 
to his friend. 

“ How lucky ! it is very kind of you to come.” 

Guy stood, hat in hand, while Vaudrey stooped to- 
ward Adrienne to kiss her brow unceremoniously in the 
presence of his friend. 

“ Oh ! ” said Lissac, “ I have not come to greet Your 
Excellency. It is your charming wife that I have called on.” 

“ I thank you for it,” said Sulpice, “ my poor Adrienne 
does not receive many visits outside the circle of official 
relations.” 

“ And she does not get very much entertainment ! 
So I promise myself to come and pay court to her — or 
such court as you would wish — from time to time. Ma- 
dame,” said Lissac jocosely, “it is a fact that this devil- 
ish minister deserves that you should receive declara- 
tions from morning to night while he is over yonder 
ogling his portfolio. Such a husband as he is, is not to 
be found again — ” 

Adrienne, blushing a little, looked at Vaudrey with 
her usual expression of tender devotion as profound as 
her soul. Sulpice made an effort to smile at Lissac’s 
pleasantries. 


274 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


*? No, take care, you know ! ” added Guy. “ As Ma- 
dame Vaudrey is so often alone, I shall allow myself to 
come here sometimes to keep her company, and I won’t 
guarantee to you that I won’t fall in love with her.” 

He turned respectfully toward Adrienne and added, 
with the correct bearing of a gentleman : 

“ Madame, all this is only to make him comprehend 
that nothing in the world, not even a rag of morocco, — 
is his portfolio a morocco one ? — is worth the happiness 
of having such a wife as you. And the miserable fellow 
doesn’t suspect it. You see, I speak of you as the Op- 
position journals do.” 

Sulpice tried to smile but he divined under Guy’s 
jesting, a serious and truthful purpose. Perhaps Adri- 
enne had just been allowing herself to complain of the 
sadness and dreariness of her life. He was hurt by it. 
After all, he did all that he could to gratify his wife. 
But a man like him was not, in fact, born to remain for- 
ever tied down. The wife of a minister must bear her 
part of the burden, since there must be a burden. 

As if Adrienne had divined Sulpice’s very thoughts, 
she quickly added, interrupting the jester who had 
somewhat confused the minister : 

“Don’t pay any attention to Monsieur de Lissac. I 
am very happy just as I am.” 

Vaudrey had taken her hand to clasp it between his 
fingers with a slightly nervous grasp. The trustful, 
good-natured, pure smile that Adrienne gave him, re- 


PART SECOND 


2 75 

called the anxious, distracted expression on Marianne’s 
tip. 

“ Dear wife ! ” 

He sought to find a word, a cry, some consolation, a 
sort of caress, proceeding from one heart and pene- 
trating the other. He could find none. 

“ Come ! ” said Guy. “ I am going to leave you, and 
if you are agreeable, madame, I will occasionally come 
here and tell you all the outside tittle-tattle.” 

“You will always be welcome, Monsieur de Lissac,” 
Adrienne said, as she extended her hand to him. 

Guy bowed to Madame Vaudrey in a most profoundly 
respectful way. 

Sulpice accompanied him through the salons as far as 
the hall. 

“ Do you want me to tell you? ” said Lissac. “Your 
wife is very weary, take care ! This big mansion is not 
very cheerful. One must inevitably catch colds in it, 
and then a woman to be all alone here ! A form of im- 
prisonment ! Do not neglect to wheedle the majority, 
my dear minister, but don’t forget your wife. Come ! I 
will not act traitorously toward you, but I warn you that 
if I often find your wife melancholy, as she is to-day, I 
will tell her that I adore her. Yes ! yes ! your wife is 
charming. I would give all the orders in the world for 
a lock of her hair. Adieu, Monsieur le Ministre.” 

“Great idiot,” said Vaudrey, giving him a little 
friendly, gentle tap on the neck. 


276 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ Be it so, but if you do not love her well enough, I 
shall fall in love with her, and I forewarn you that it is 
much better that I should than any other. Au revoir.” 

“ Au revoir ! ” Sulpice repeated. 

He tried now to force a smile and went down to his 
cabinet, where he found heaped-up reports awaiting his 
attention and he turned the pages over nervously and 
read them in a very bad humor. 


11 

Madame Vaudrey drew no real pleasure from the com- 
monplace receptions at the ministry, or at her Wednes- 
day at homes , except when by chance, Denis Ramel 
permitted himself to abandon the Batignolles to call at 
Place Beauvau, or when Guy enlivened this dull spot by 
recounting the happenings of the outside world. 

Adrienne felt herself terribly isolated ; she knew 
hardly any one in Paris. Since Vaudrey had installed 
himself in Rue de la Chaussee-d’Antin, she had not had 
time to form acquaintances among the wives of the 
deputies to the Assembly, the majority of whom lived in 
the provinces or dwelt at Versailles for economical rea- 
sons. 

Evidently the residence at the ministry had only 
brought her ready-made relations, depressingly inevitable 
visitors who resembled office-seekers or clients. These 


PART SECOND 


277 

official receptions filled her with sadness. The conver- 
sation always took the same hackneyed tone, disgusting 
in its flattery or disquieting by reason of its allusions. 
People discussed coming interpellations of ministers ; 
government majorities, projected legislation ; the same 
phrases, as dreary as showers, fell with all the regularity 
of drops of rain. Even young girls, brought up in this 
centre of infuriated politicians, spoke of the breaking up 
of the majority, reports or ballots, in the same manner 
as shopkeepers talk of their trade. 

Poor Adrienne exerted herself to acquire an interest 
in these matters. Since her husband’s very existence 
was involved therein, hers should also be. She had, 
however, formerly dreamed of an entirely different youth 
and on bright, sunshiny days she reflected that yonder 
on the banks of the Isere, it was delightful in her sweet, 
little, provincial house. 

Besides, she carefully concealed her melancholy. She 
knew that she was already reproached for being some- 
what sad. A minister’s wife should know how to smile. 
This was what Madame Marsy never failed to repeat to 
her as often as possible when she visited her at Place 
Beauvau. This woman w r ho hardly concerned herself at 
all about her son, allowing him to grow up badly enough 
and committing all her maternal duties to the grand- 
mother, was perpetually cheerful, notwithstanding that 
her life had been chequered by chance and her widow- 
hood of sufficiently dramatic character, as was said. 


2 7 8 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

She endeavored to play the part of an adviser, an intimate 
friend to Adrienne. She frequently said to Madame 
Gerson, who rarely left her, that Madame Vaudrey would 
be altogether charming if she had chic. 

“ Unfortunately, she is provincial ; not in her element. 
She still smacks of Dauphiny. And then — what is the 
funniest thing : she knows nothing of politics.” 

“ She does not even concern herself about it,” said the 
pretty Madame Gerson, laughing heartily. 

According to these ladies she did not take the trouble 
to fulfil the role of a minister’s wife faultlessly. Ah ! if 
only Sabine or Blanche Gerson occupied the position 
filled by this petite bourgeoise of Grenoble ! Well ! Paris 
would have seen what an Athenian Republic was. 

Sabine Marsy was decidedly clever. She politely ad- 
vised Adrienne, without appearing to do so, as to many 
matters, in suOh a way as to convey reproof under the 
guise of kindness. Madame Vaudrey would have done 
well, as Madame Gerson also observed, to have studied 
the Code du Cerhnonial on reaching Place Beauvau. 

Like Madame Marsy, Madame Gerson had gradually 
gained Adrienne’s friendship. From an ostentatious de- 
sire to be able to tell of what happened at the ministry ; 
to be on the first list of guests, when the minister re- 
ceived or gave a ball, Sabine Marsy, who had suf- 
fered from the mania of aspiring to become an artist, 
patronized the intransigeant painters and exhibited at 
the salon, now set her mind on playing the role of a 


PART SECOND 


2 79 

political figure in Paris. Madame Gerson, Blanche , as 
Sabine called her, had a similar ambition, but simply 
from a desire to be in fashion. 

She wished to bring herself into notice. Everything 
attracted her, tempted her. She belonged, body and 
soul, to that machine with its manifold gearing, brilliant, 
noisy, active, puffing like a locomotive, that is called chic. 
Chic , that indefinite, indefinable word, changeable and 
subtle like a capillary hygrometer, is a Parisian tyranny 
that grinds out more fashionable lives than the King of 
Dahomey offers as victims on his great feast days. For 
Blanche, everything in this most stimulated, over-excited, 
feverishly deranged life, was reduced to these two inev- 
itable conclusions : what was chic and what was not chic. 
Not only was this the inevitable guide in reference to 
style, clothing, hat, gloves, costume, material, jewelry, 
the dress that she should wear, but also the book that 
should be read, the play that should be heard, the oper- 
atic score that should be strummed on the piano, the 
bonbon that should be presented, the opinion that one 
should hold, the picture one should comment upon, all 
was hopelessly a question of chic. 

Madame Gerson would have preferred to be compro- 
mised in the matter of her honor rather than to be ridi- 
culed as to her opinions or to express an idea that was not 
chic. The necessary result was that all this woman’s 
conversation — and she often came to see Madame Vau- 
drey, — was on well-known topics ; so that Adrienne knew 


28 o His EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

in advance what Blanche’s opinion was upon such and 
such a matter, and that ideas could only pass muster 
with Madame Gerson when they bore the stamp of chic, 
just as a coin, to escape suspicion of being counterfeit, 
must bear the stamp of the mint. 

Blanche would have been heartbroken if she had not 
been seen in the President’s salon on the occasion of a 
great reception at the Elysee ; at the ministry, on the 
evening of a comedy ; if she had not been in the front 
rank of the ladies’ gallery on the day of interpellation at 
the Assembly ; if she had not been greeted from the top 
of the grand stand by some minister, on Grand Prix day ; 
if she had not been the first at the varnishing ; the first at 
the general rehearsals, a little chic , — the first everywhere. 
Slender, delicate, but hardy as a Parisian, she dragged 
her exhausted husband, with her hand of fine steel, 
through receptions, balls, soirees, salons, talking loudly, 
judging everything, chattering, cackling and haranguing, 
delighted to mount with head erect, the grand staircase 
of a minister and feel the joy of plunging her little feet 
into the official moquettes as if her heels had been made 
for state carpets ; swelling with pride when she heard 
the usher, amid the hubbub of the reception, call loudly 
the name which meant the fashionable couple, a couple 
found at every fete : 

“ Monsieur and Madame Gerson ! ” 

While the husband, fatigued, weary, left his office 
heavy-headed, after having eaten a hasty meal, put on his 


PART SECOND 


281 


dress coat and white tie in haste, got into his carriage in 
haste, hurriedly accompanied his wife, left her in order 
to take a doze on an armchair during the height of 
the ball, woke in haste, returned home in haste, slept 
hurriedly, rose the same, dragging this indefatigable 
creature about with him like a convict’s chain, she 
smiled at others, enticed others, waltzed with others, 
adorned herself for others, keeping for him only her 
weariness, her yawns, her pallor and her sick-headaches. 

For these two galley-slaves of chic , the winter passed 
in this manner, as fatiguing as months of penal servitude, 
and they went none too soon when the summer arrived, 
to breathe the sea air or enjoy the sunshine of the coun- 
try, in order to restore their frames, wan, worn-out, 
seedy and “ gruelled,” as Sabine Marsy said, when she 
recalled her connection with the artists. 

“Ah! how much better I like my home!” thought 
Madame Vaudrey. 

Sabine and Madame Gerson, with the wives of the 
ministers, those of the chiefs of departments, and the 
regular visitors, were the most assiduous in their atten- 
tions to Adrienne, whom they considered decidedly pro- 
vincial. She, stupefied, was alarmed by these Parisian 
bustlers, that resembled machines in running order, jab- 
bering aw r ay as music-boxes play. 

“Do they tire you?” said Guy de Lissac to her 
bluntly one evening, succumbing to a feeling of pity for 
this pensive young woman, — who was a hundred times 


282 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


prettier than Madame Gerson, whose beauty was so 
highly extolled in the journals, — this minister’s wife, who 
voluntarily kept herself in the background with a timidity 
that betrayed no awkwardness, but was in every way 
attractive, especially to a man about town like Guy. 

“They do not tire me, they upset me,” Adrienne 
replied. 

“Ah ! they are in full go, as it is called. An express 
train. But they amuse themselves so much that they 
have not even time to smile. When the locomotive spins 
along too rapidly, try to distinguish the scenery ! ” 

Adrienne instinctively felt that under his irony this 
sceptic disguised a sort of sincerity. Lissac’s wit pleased 
her. He surprised her somewhat at times, but the prob- 
ably assumed raillery of the young man compensated 
for the insipid nonsense of the conversation to which she 
listened daily. 

At first from mere curiosity and after from a senti- 
ment of respectful devotion, Guy was impelled to study 
that delicate and sensitive nature, entirely swayed by 
love of Sulpice, that suffered at times a vague pressure 
as of some indefinable anguish at the throat, as if a 
vacuum — a choking vacuum — had been created about 
her by some air-pump. 

This huge mansion seemed to her to be entirely inno- 
cent of all memories, and though peopled with phantoms, 
was as commonplace and vulgar as an apartment house. 
There were no associations save dust and cracks. These 


PART SECOND 283 

salons, built for the Marshal de Beauvau, these walls 
that had listened to the sobs of Madame d’Houdetot at 
the death-bed of Saint-Lambert, appeared to Adrienne 
to exude ennui, strangling and inevitable ennui, solemn, 
official, absolute ennui, nothing but ennui in the very 
decorum of the place, and isolation in the midst of 
power. 

She cursed her loneliness, she felt lost amid the salons 
of this furnished ministerial mansion, whose cold, gloomy 
apartments, with the chairs symmetrically arranged along 
the walls, she wandered through, but evidently without ex- 
pecting any one : state chairs lacking occupants, — ordi- 
nary chairs, domestic chairs seem to have tongues — that 
never exchanged conversation. Vast, deserted rooms 
where the green curtains behind the glass doors of the 
bookcases were eternally drawn, bookcases without books, 
forever open, mournful as empty sepulchres. 

Yes, this immense gilded dwelling with its Gobelins 
tapestries stifled her with its terrifying gloom, where 
nothing, not a single article, recalled her charming pro- 
vincial home, her Grenoble house with its garden filled 
with lilacs where she was often wont to read while Sul- 
pice worked upstairs, bent over his table crowded with 
papers, before his open window. Ah ! those cherished 
rooms, in the humble corner of the provincial home, 
their happy crouching in the peaceful nest ; aye, even 
the happy first days in Paris, in the Chaussee-d’Antin 
apartments, in which Adrienne at least felt herself in her 


284 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

own home, free in her actions and thoughts, and where 
she could talk aloud without feeling that an eye was 
constantly watching her, and ears were always strained, in 
fact, a perpetual espionage upon all her actions and a 
criticism of all her words. 

She had reached a point when she asked herself if, 
even for Sulpice, happiness was not far removed from 
this life of slavery, of feverish politics, which for some 
time past had been visibly paling his cheeks and ren- 
dering him nervous and altogether different from of old. 

“ If you did not love me so much,” she said with a 
sweet smile, “ I could believe that you loved me no 
longer.” 

“ What folly ! you have only one rival, Adrienne.” 

“ Ah ! I know that very well, but that robs me of 
everything. It is politics. Come ! be great and I shall 
be happy or resigned as you wish. I adore you so much ! 
I would give you my life, so I would gladly give you my 
days of weariness ! ” 

Although she was rich, she strove to introduce into 
her official surroundings the bourgeois and provincial 
orderly methods that she had been so virtuously taught. 
She found that her desserts vanished with frightful ra- 
pidity, that dishes scarcely touched and bottles whose 
contents had only been tasted, were removed to the 
kitchen. She commented thereon but the somewhat 
contemptuous smile of her domestics was her only reply 
and it made her feel ashamed. 


PART SECOND 285 

Vaudrey’s predecessor, Monsieur Pichereau, was ex- 
acting, close-fisted. His table was meagre but there was 
nothing astonishing in that, Monsieur Pichereau had a 
delicate stomach. Well and good, but the predecessors 
of Monsieur Pichereau, they had given fetes, they had ! 
It is true that one was a count and the other a marquis. 
One can always tell a gentleman anywhere. 

One evening, they heard one of the domestics of the 
ministry say to another : 

“As if it were notour money that the ministers spend ! 
It is the electors’ money. They give us wages : we 
give them salaries. There it is ! ” 

The domestic was discharged immediately, but these 
remarks, however, recurred to Adrienne’s memory and 
filled her with dislike for the flunkeyism that surrounded 
her, waiting on her with cold civility, but without any 
attachment, like hotel waiters or girls at an inn that one 
will leave the next day, giving them a gratuity. 

Vaudrey saw much less of these daily little wounds. 
He lived in an atmosphere of constant flattery, favor- 
begging cloaked under complimentary phrases. Had he 
leisure, he would have been able to calculate with math- 
ematical exactitude how many angles the human form 
would describe in the process of bowing and scraping. 
In his department, everybody asked for something or 
got someone else to ask. Promotion , that insatiable 
hunger, was the greedy dream of all that little world of 
intriguing, underhand, begging employes, who opened 


286 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


up around the new minister so many approaches, like 
military lines around a redoubt. 

Sulpice felt himself besieged and the target for a 
crowd of greedy ambitions. The sub-heads of depart- 
ments cast bitterly envious glances at the offices of chiefs, 
like hungry beggars hypnotized by the display at Chevet’s. 
Commendatory letters rained on him. This shower of 
begging-missives nauseated the minister to such an 
extent that he endeavored to arrest the stream, ordering 
Warcolier, the Under Secretary of State, to be called 
and requesting him to reply to the deputies, to the sena- 
tors, to everybody, in fact : that he had no influence to 
use, that the era of favoritism was over ; that he, Vau- 
drey, understood that only merit would receive official 
gifts. “ Merit only. You understand, Monsieur War- 
colier? ” 

Warcolier rolled his huge eyes in astonishment ; then, 
with a self-satisfied smile of an expressionless beau, after 
passing his fat hand through his long whiskers, yellow 
and streaked with gray, that decorated his rosy cheeks, 
he remarked doctorally, that Monsieur le Ministre was 
entering on a path that, in all conscience, he could 
qualify as being only dangerous. Eh ! bon Dieu / one 
must do something for one’s friends ! — rVaudrey’s acces- 
sion to the Department of the Interior had given birth 
to many new hopes ; on all grounds they must be satis- 
fied. Vaudrey would never be forgiven for such de- 
ception. 


PART SECOND 


287 

“What deception? ” asked Sulpice. “ I promised re- 
forms and I am going to carry them out, but people 
laugh at my reforms and ask what? — Places.” 

“ Bless me!” replied Warcolier, “ entirely logical.” 

“ Be it so ! but there are places and places. I cannot, 
however, retire a whole staff of employes to give place 
to a new one. That’s precisely what they want. There 
is not a deputy who has not one candidate to recommend 
to me.” 

“That’s very natural, Monsieur le Ministre, seeing 
that there is not a deputy who may not himself be a 
candidate.” 

“ Still, he should be independent of his electors, but 
in truth, it is not the rights of those who have elected 
them that my colleagues defend, it is their own interests.” 

“ Every man for himself, Monsieur le Ministre. Yester- 
day, even yesterday, one of my electors whose wife has 
just given birth to a child, wrote me, asking for a good 
nurse. That is like one of our colleagues, Perraud — of 
the Vosges. — One of his electors commissioned him to 
take back an umbrella with him upon his early return. 
The electors regard their deputies in the light of com- 
mission merchants.” 

“ And as tobacco bureaus ! Well, I wish to have more 
morality than that in State affairs. I like giving, but I 
know how to refuse,” said Vaudrey. 

“ That will be easy enough so long as you are popular 
and solid in Parliament ; but on the day that it is clearly 


288 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


proved that such and such a future minister can make 
himself more useful than you to the personal interests of 
everybody — and there are such ministers in sight — ” 

“ Granet, yes, I know ! He promises more butter 
than bread, to cry quits later in giving more dry crusts 
than fresh butter. But I don’t care to deceive any 
one.” 

“As you please, Monsieur le Ministre, as you please,” 
answered YVarcolier, in a mocking and gentle tone. 

Sulpice did not like this man. He was a phrase- 
maker. He had a vague feeling that this Warcolier who 
in public affected rigidly strange principles was privately 
undermining him and that he yielded to favors in order 
to win support. It was enough for the minister to dis- 
courage coarse, greedy ambitions, provided that the 
Under Secretary of State encouraged unsavory, eager 
hopes by shrewd smiles and silence that assented to all 
that was desired. This little underhand work going on 
in his office was unknown to Vaudrey; he did not 
know that out of every refusal he gave, Warcolier secured 
friends ; but he maintained a watchful distrust for this 
republican who had become so stanch a supporter of 
the Republic only since that form of government had 
triumphed. Besides, what had he to fear? The Presi- 
dent of the Council, Monsieur Collard, of Nantes, had 
the unbounded confidence of the head of the State and 
of the Chamber ; and he was Collard’s intimate friend. 
The majority of the cabinet was compact. The perfect 


PART SECOND 289 

calm of the horizon was undisturbed by a cloud. Vau- 
drey could rule without fear, without excitement and 
give all his spare time to that woman whose piercing 
glance, wandering smile, palpitating nostrils, dishevelled, 
fair hair, kisses, fondness, cries, and tones pursued him 
everywhere. 

Marianne, how he loved her ! From day to day, how 
his love of her increased like a madman’s ! It seemed 
to him that he suddenly found himself in the presence of 
the only woman who could possibly understand him, and 
in the only world 'in which he could live ; his petty 
bourgeois, sensual inexperience flourished in the little 
hotel of the courtesan. 

He had doubtless loved ; often enough he had thought 
himself once more in love ; the poor grisettes, to whom 
he had written in verse, as he might have sung songs to 
them, were gone from his thoughts, though they had oc- 
cupied his heart for a short time. He had profoundly 
loved her who bore his name, perhaps he loved her still 
as warmly, as sincerely — the unfortunate man ! — as of old. 
He sometimes recalled with tearful eye, how his whole 
frame trembled with love in the presence of that young 
girl who had given herself entirely to him, in all her trust 
and sincerity, in all her candor, and all her chastely- 
timid innocent modesty. But Adrienne’s love was in- 
sipid compared with the intoxicating and appetizing 
voluptuousness of this woman, so adorable in her exqui- 
site luxury, the refinements of her charm, the singular 
19 


290 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER. 


grace of her attitudes, of her mind, her disjointed con- 
versation which challenged everything, mocked, caressed, 
beginning with a pout in order to end with some droll- 
ery, and challenged passion by exasperating it with 
refusals and mockery which changed into distracting 
lasciviousness. 

When she extended to Vaudrey her little hand, covered 
with rings, and indolent and soft, he felt as if he had 
received an electric shock and that his marrow had been 
touched. This man of forty felt all the enthusiasm and 
distraction of a youth. It seemed to him that this was 
the only woman that he possibly could love and in truth 
she was the only one that he could have loved as he did, 
with his forgetfulness of self, his outbursts of madness, . 
the distracted sentiment of a love for which he would 
have braved and risked everything. 

When he confessed it frankly, she had a way of an- 
swering with a questioning manner full of doubt, which 
conveyed the delicacy of the woman’s self-love and the 
intentionally refined doubt of the coquette, a questioning 
yes : 

“ Yes? ” 

Simply that. 

And in this yes , there was a world of tenderness, 
excitement and burning promises for Sulpice. 

Then he drew her to him : 

“ Yes, yes, yes, yes ! ” he repeated in burning tones, 
as he thrust his head between her shoulders that emerged 


PART SECOND 


291 

from her embroidered chemise, and her neck perfumed 
and satiny, that he covered with eager kisses. 

Yes ! And he would have uttered this yes before 
every one like a bravado. Yes / It was his delight to 
give himself wholly to Marianne and to tell her again and 
again that nothing in the whole world could take the 
place of this mistress who made him forget everything : 
politics, the home, the ambition that had been his life, 
and his affection for Adrienne that had been his joy. 

Thanks to the Dujarrier, Marianne had paid the rent 
of the house, the servants and the pressing debts. 
Claire Dujarrier advanced the hundred thousand francs de- 
manded by Mademoiselle Kayser, and which she had ap- 
parently — in reality she took them from her own funds- — 
borrowed from Adolphe Gochard, her lover, who had 
not a sou, and in whose favor Vaudrey signed in regular 
legal form, a bill of exchange at three months’ date 
value received in cash. The Dujarrier merely retained 
twenty thousand francs as her commission and handed 
only eighty thousand to Marianne.' 

“ But Vaudrey’s acceptance to Gochard is for one 
hundred thousand ! ” 

, “ You are silly, my girl ! What if I lose the balance ? 
If your minister should not pay? ” . 

“What do you mean? ” 

“ Stranger things have happened, my little one.” 

Vaudrey having paid, given his name, signed this bill 
of exchange, felt the extreme joy arising from the base 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


292 

self-love of the man who pays a lovely creature and who, 
nevertheless, believes himself loved. 

In the early days, Sulpice went to Rue Prony only 
during the day or at night after dinner, or on leaving a 
reception or the theatre. Marianne awaited him. He 
came stealthily, distracted with joy. There, in the closed 
chamber he remained with Marianne, who was full of 
pride at the complete subjugation of the will of this 
man in her embrace. She amused herself occasionally 
by calling him Your Excellency , in reading to him from 
some book which spun out the ceremonial necessary in 
applying for an interview with a minister : 

“ If ever I ask you for an audience, do you know how 
I must address myself to the secretary? Listen to this 
book, it is funny : * Ordinary toilet. The etiquette for 
the toilet is not very strict, but it is, however, in good 
taste to appear dressed as for a ceremonious call. For 
women, the toilet should be simple and the gloves new.’ ” 

She laughed as she rested almost naked in Sulpice’s 
arms, and repeated, looking into his eyes : 

“ A simple toilet ! ” 

“ And again, listen ! ” she said, as she resumed the 
book. “ ‘ In speaking to a minister as in writing to him, 
one should address him as Monseigneur or Your Excel- 
lency. On reaching the door as you leave the salon, you 
should again bow respectfully.’ That is amusing, ah ! 
how amusing it is ! — Then they respect you as much as 
hat? Your Excellency! Monseigneur! Shall I be> 


PART SECOND 


2 93 

obliged to courtesy to you? — Your lips, give me your 
lips, Monseigneur ! I adore you ! — You are my own min- 
ister ; my finance minister, my lover, my all ! I do not 
respect you, but I love you, I love you ! ” 

He trembled to the very roots of his hair when she spoke 
to him thus. He felt transports of joy in clasping her 
in his arms and genuine despair when he left her. Leave 
her ! leave her there under that lamp alone, in that low 
bed where he had just forgotten that there existed any- 
thing else in the world besides that apartment, warm 
with perfumes. He would have liked to pass the whole 
night beside her, separating only when satiated and over- 
whelmed with caresses. But how could he leave Adri- 
enne alone over there in the ministerial mansion ? How- 
ever trustful this young wife might be, and innocent, 
credulous and incapable of suspicion, if he had passed a 
night absent from her, she would have been terrified and 
warned. 

He easily invented prolonged receptions and night 
sessions that detained him until an advanced hour. 

“ One would say that the evening sessions grew more 
frequent than formerly/’ Adrienne remarked gently at 
breakfast. 

“ Don’t talk to me about it,” replied Sulpice. “ In 
order to reach the vacation sooner, the deputies talk 
twice as long.” 

Adrienne never opened the Officiel \ whici) Vaudrey 
received in his private office, pretending that the sight 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


294 

of a newspaper too vividly recalled the fatiguing political 
life that absorbed him. One day, however, he allowed 
the journals to be brought into the salon and to lie about 
in Madame’s room. He informed Adrienne that he was 
going to pass the day in Picardy, at Guise or at Vervins, 
where an important deputy had invited him to visit his 
factory. He would leave in the morning and could not 
return until the following day toward noon. 

“ What a long time ! ” said Adrienne. 

“ It is still longer for me than for you, since you re- 
main here, in our home.” 

“ Oh ! our home ! we have only one home : in Chaus- 
s£e-d’Antin, or the house at Grenoble, you know.” 

“Dear wife!” cried Vaudrey, as he embraced her 
tenderly, — sincerely, perhaps. 

And he left. He set out for Guise, returned in the 
evening and ordered the Director of the Press to send 
to all the journals by the Havas agency, a message which 
ran : The Minister of the Interior passed the e7itire day 
yesterday at Guise , at Monsieur Delair' s, the deputy from 
TAisne. He dined and slept at the house of his host 
Monsieur Vaudrey is to return to Paris this morning , at 
eleven o'clock. 

Then he showed the news to Adrienne, and laughed 
as he said : 

“ It is surprising ! one cannot take a single step with- 
out it appears in print and the entire population is in- 
formed at once ! ” 


PART SECOND 


2 95 

“ Tell me everything,” Adrienne replied, as she em- 
braced him with her glance. “ Are you tired ? You 
look pale. How did you spend the day? You made a 
speech? Were you applauded? ” 

It was mainly by kisses that Vaudrey answered. What 
could he say to Adrienne ? She knew perfectly well how 
similar all these gatherings were, with their official rou- 
tine. Monsieur Delair had been very agreeable, but the 
minister had necessarily had to endure much talk, much 
importunity. 

“The day seemed very long to me ! ” 

“ And to me also,” she said. 

Sulpice indeed returned from Guise, but the last train 
on the previous night had taken him to Rue Prony, at 
Marianne’s. He had then found out the secret of re- 
maining at her side undisturbed for a long time, and the 
telegraph, managed by the Director of the Press, enabled 
him to prove an alibi to Adrienne from time to time. 
He had taken to Marianne a huge bouquet of fresh 
flowers gathered in the park at Guise for Madame Vau- 
drey by Monsieur Delair’s two daughters. That appeared 
to him to be quite natural. 

Marianne, who was waiting for him, put the flowers 
in the Japanese vases and said to him as she threw her 
bare arms around him : 

“ Very good ! You thought of me ! — 

The next morning Vaudrey left, more than ever en- 
chained by the delight of her embraces. He sometimes 


296 His EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER. 

returned on foot, to breathe the vivifying freshness of the 
roseate dawn, or taking a cab, he stretched himself out 
wearily therein, as he drove to the ministry, musing over 
the hours so recently passed and striving to arrest them 
in their flight, to enjoy again their seductive joy and to 
squeeze as from a delicious fruit, all their intoxicating 
poetry, delight and fascination. 

He closed his eyes. He saw Marianne again with 
her eyes veiled as he kissed her, he drank in the odor of 
her hair that fell like a sort of fair cover over the lace 
pillow. It seemed that he was permeated with her per- 
fume. He breathed the air with wide-open nostrils to 
inhale it again, to recover its scent and preserve it. 
His whole frame trembled with emotion at the recollec- 
tion of that lovely form that he had left whiter than the 
sheet of the bed, in the dim light that filtered through 
the opal-shaded lamp. 

Then he thought that he must forget, and invent 
some tale for Adrienne. Again he opened his eyes and 
trembled in spite of himself, as he saw, on both sides of 
the cab, workmen slowly trudging along the sidewalks 
with their hands in their pockets, their noses red, a 
wretched worn-out silk scarf about their necks and 
swinging on their arms the supply of food for the day, or 
again with their fingers numb with the cold, holding 
some journal in their hands in which they read as they 
marched along, the speech of “ Monsieur le Ministre de 
l’lnterieur,” that magnificent speech not made during 


PART SECOND 


297 

the night session as Sulpice had told Adrienne, but the 
day before yesterday, in broad day, when the majority, 
faithfully grouped about him, had applauded this phrase : 
/, whose hours are consecrated to the amelioration of the 
lot of the poor and who can say with the poet , — I shall 
be pardoned for this feeling of vanity ; 

“ What I steal from my nights, I add to my days ! ” 

Sulpice heard again the applause that he received. 
He saw those devoted hands reached out to him as he 
descended from the tribune ; he again experienced a 
feeling of pride, and yet he felt dissatisfied with himself 
now that he saw the other hands, the servile hands of 
the applauders, hidden by the red, cold hands of a mason 
who held this speech between his horny fingers. 

Sulpice returned to the ministry, shaking himself as if 
to induce forgetfulness, busy, weary, and still, — eternally, 
— as if immovably fixed in an antechamber of Place 
Beauvau, he found the inevitable place-hunters, the 
hornets of ministries. 

Vaudrey caused these urgent people, as well as some 
others, to be received by Warcolier, who asked nothing 
better than to make tools, to sow the seed of his clientage. 
Guy de Lissac and Ramel had simultaneously called 
Vaudrey’s attention to the eagerness which Warcolier 
manifested in toying with popularity. 

“ He is not wholly devoted to you, is this gentleman 
who prefers every government ! ” said Guy. 


298 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

“ He will undermine you quietly ! ” added Ramel. 

“I am satisfied of that. But I am not disturbed : I 
have the majority. Oh ! faithful and compact.” 

“ Woman often changes,” muttered Ramel. 

Guy was troubled about Vaudrey for another reason. 
He vaguely suspected that Sulpice was neglecting 
Adrienne. Political business, doubtless. Vaudrey un- 
questionably loved his wife, who adored him and was 
herself adorable. But he manifestly neglected her. 

Lissac found them one day smilingly discussing a 
question that was greatly occupying the journalists : 
divorce. Apropos of a trifle, of a suit for separation 
that Adrienne had just read in the Gazette des Tribunaux. 
It referred to an adulterous husband, a pottery dealer in 
Rue Paradis, Monsieur Vauthier, the lover of a singer at 
a rather notorious cafe-concert , named Lea Thibault. 
The wife had demanded a separation. Adrienne had 
just read the pleadings. 

“ Poor woman ! ” she said. “ She must have suffered, 
indeed.” 

Sulpice did not reply. 

“ Do you know that if that were my case, I could never 
forgive you? ” 

“You are mad ! What are you thinking of? ” 

“ Oh ! it is true, the idea that you could touch another 
woman, that you could kiss her as you kiss me, that 
would make me more than angry, horrified and disgusted. 
I tell you, I would never forgive you.” 


PART SECOND 


2 99 

“ Who puts all this stuff in your head? Come, I will 
do as I used to do,” saidVaudrey. “ Not another paper 
shall enter your house ! What an idea, to read the 
Gazette des Tribunaux / ” 

“ It is because this name : Vauthier , somewhat re- 
sembles your own that I was induced to read it. And 
then this very mournful title : Separation de corps. I 
would prefer divorce myself. A complete divorce that 
severs the past like a knife-cut.” 

“ But what an idea ! ” repeated Sulpice, who was some- 
what uneasy. 

Vaudrey was delighted to hear Guy announced in the 
midst of this discussion. They would then change the 
topic. But Adrienne, who was much affected by her 
reading, returned to the same subject in an obstinate 
sort of way and Lissac commenced to laugh. 

“ What a joke ! To speak of divorce between you 
two ! Never fear, madame, your husband will never 
present to the Chamber a law in favor of divorce.” 

“ Who knows ?” Sulpice answered. “I am in favor 
of divorce myself, yes, absolutely.” 

“ And I cannot understand, for my part, how a woman 
can belong to two living men,” said Adrienne. 

“ You reason for yourself. But the unhappy women 
who suffer — and the unhappy men— The existing law, 
in fact, seeing that it admits separation, permits divorce, 
but more cruel, heartrending, and unjust. Divorce with- 
out freedom. Divorce that continues the chain.” 


3 °° 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ Sulpice is right, madame, and sooner or later, we 
shall certainly arrive at that frightful divorce.” 

“After all, what does it matter to me?” Adrienne 
replied. 

She threw the accursed Gazette des Tribunaux into 
the waste basket with its Suit of Vauthier vs. Vauthier. 
“ We are not interested, neither my husband nor I ; he 
loves me and I love him. I am as sure of him as he is 
sure of me. He may demand all the laws that are 
possible : it would not be for selfish interest, for he 
would not profit by them.” 

“Never ! ” said Sulpice with a laugh, delighted to be 
released from the magnetic influence of Adrienne’s 
strange excitement. 

There was, however, a somewhat false ring in this 
laugh. Face to face with the avowed trustfulness of his 
wife, Sulpice experienced a slight pricking of conscience. 
He thought of Marianne. His passion increased tenfold, 
but this very increase of affection made him afraid. He 
hastened to find himself again at Rue Prony. The 
Hotel Beauvau depressed him. It became more than 
ever a prison. How gladly he escaped from it ! 

Yes, it was a prison for him as it was for Adrienne ; a 
prison that he fled from to seek Marianne’s boudoir, to 
enjoy her kisses and mirth, while, at the same moment, 
his wife, the dear abandoned, disdained creature, sad 
without being cognizant of the cause of her melancholy, 
terrified by the emptiness of that grand ministerial man- 


PART SECOND 


301 


sion, that “ sounded hollow,” as she said, quietly and 
stealthily took the official carriage that Vaudrey sent 
back to her from the Chamber, and had herself driven 
— where ? — only she knew ! 

“ You ought to make a great many calls,” the minister 
had frequently said. “It would divert your mind and 
it is well to appear to know a great many persons.” 

But she only found pleasure in making one visit, she 
gave the coachman the address of the apartments on 
Chaussee-d’Antin, where she had lived long, happy years 
with Sulpice, sweet and peaceful under the clear light 
of the lamp. She entered this deserted apartment, now 
as cold as a tomb, and had the shutters opened by the 
concierge in order that she might see the sunlight pene- 
trate the room and set all the motes dancing in its cheer- 
ful rays. She shut herself in and remained there happy, 
consoled ; sitting in the armchair formerly occupied by 
Sulpice, she pictured him at the table at which he used 
to work, his inkstand before him and surrounded by his 
books, his cherished books ! She lived again the' van- 
ished life. “ Return ! ” she said to the dream, the 
humble dream she had at last recovered. She rambled 
about those deserted rooms that on every side reminded 
her of some sweet delight, here it was a kiss of chaste and 
eternal love, there a smile. Ah ! how easy life would 
have been there all alone, happy for ever ! 

The Ministry ! Power ! Popularity ! Fame ! Author- 
ity ! What were they worth? 


3 02 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


Is all that worth one of the blessed hours in this little 
dwelling, where the cup of bliss would have been full if 
the wife could have heard the clear laugh or the faint cry 
of a child? 

Poor Sulpice ! how he was exhausting himself now in 
an overwhelming task ! He was giving his health and life 
to politics, while here he only experienced peace, con- 
soling caresses and the quieting of every excitement. 
On the study-table there still remained some pens and 
some books that were formerly in constant use. 

Adrienne went away with reddened eyes from these 
pilgrimages, as it were, to her former happiness. She 
returned to her carriage and moistened her cambric 
pocket handkerchief with her warm breath, in order to 
wipe her eyes so that Sulpice might not see that she had 
been weeping. Then when her well-known carriage 
passed before the shops in the Faubourg Saint- Honors, 
the wives of mercers or booksellers, dressmakers, young 
girls, all of whom enviously shook their heads, said to 
each other : 

“ The minister’s wife ! — Ah ! she has had a glorious 
dream ! — She is happy ! ” 


PART SECOND 


3°3 


III 

Marianne was contented. Not that her ambition was 
completely satisfied, but after all, Sulpice in place of 
Rosas was worth having. Though a minister was only a 
passing celebrity, he was a personage. From the depths 
of the bog in which she lately rolled, she would never 
have dared to hope for so speedy a revenge. 

Speedy, assuredly, but perhaps not sufficient. Her 
eager hunger increased with her success. Since Vaudrey 
was hers, she sought some means of bringing about some 
adventure that would give her fortune. What could be 
asked or exacted from Sulpice? She recalled the tradi- 
tions of fantastic bargains, of extensive furnishings. 
She would find them. She had but to desire, since he 
had abandoned himself, bound hand and foot, like a 
child. 

She knew him now, all his candor, all his weakness, 
for, in the presence of this blase woman, weary of love, 
Vaudrey permitted himself to confide his thoughts with 
unreserved freedom, opening his heart and disclosing 
himself with a clean breast in this duel with a woman : 
— a duel of self-interest which he mistook for passion. 

She had studied him at first and speedily ranked 
him, calling. him : 

“ An innocent ! ” — 


3°4 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


She felt that in this house in Rue Prony, where she 
was really not in her own home but was installed as in a 
conquered territory, Sulpice was dazzled. Like a pro- 
vincial, as Granet described him so often, he entered 
there into a new world. 

Uncle Kayser frequently called to see his niece. 
Severe in taste, he cast long, disdainful looks at the 
tapestries and the artistic trifles that adorned the house. 
In his opinion, it was rubbish and the luxury of a decay- 
ing age. He never changed his tune, always riding the 
hobby-horse of an aesthetic moralist. 

“ It lacks severity, all this furnishing of yours,” was 
his constantly repeated criticism to Marianne, as he sat 
smoking his pipe on a divan, as was his custom in his 
own, wretched studio. 

Then, in an abrupt way, with his eye wandering over 
the ceiling as if he were following the flight of a chimera, 
he would say : 

“ Why ! your minister must do a great deal, if all this 
comes from the ministry ! ” 

Marianne interrupted him. It was no business of his 
to mix himself up with matters that did not concern him. 
Above all, he must hold his tongue. Did he forget that 
Vaudrey was married ? The least indiscretion — 

“Oh! don’t alarm yourself,” the painter broke in, 
“ I am as dumb as a carp, the more so since your esca- 
pade is not very praiseworthy ! — For you have, in fact, 
deserted the domestic hearth — yes, you have deserted 


PART SECOND 


305 

the hearth. — It is pretty here, a little like a courtesan’s, 
perhaps, but pretty, all the same. — But you must 
acknowledge that it is a case of interloping. It is not the 
genuine home with its dignity, its virtuous severity, its — 
What time does your minister come? I would like to 
speak to him — ” 

“To preach morality to him?” asked Marianne, 
glancing at her uncle with an ironical expression. 

“ Not at all. I am considered to be ignorant — No, 
I have a plan to decorate in a uniform way, all the 
mayors’ offices in Paris and I want to propose it to him — 
The Modern Marriage , an allegorical treatment ! — Law 
Imposing Duty on Love. Something noble, full of ex- 
pression, moralizing. Art that will set people thinking, 
for the contemplation of lofty works can alone improve 
the morals and the masses — You understand? ” 

“ Perfectly. You want a commission ! ” 

“ Ah ! that’s a contemptible word, hold ! A commis- 
sion ! Is a true artist commissioned? He obeys his 
inspiration, he follows his ideal — A commission ! a com- 
mission ! Ugh ! — On my word, you would break the 
wings of faith ! Little one, have you any of that double 
zero Kummel left, that you had the other day?” 

Marianne sought to spare Sulpice the importunities of 
her uncle. She wished to keep the minister’s entire 
influence for herself. 

She had nothing to fear, moreover. Sulpice was hers 

as fully as she believed. Like so many others who have 
20 


306 his excellency the minister 

lived without living, Sulpice did not know woman , and 
Marianne was ten times a woman, woman-child, woman- 
lover, woman-courtesan, woman-girl, and every day and 
every night she appeared to her lover renewed and sur- 
prising, freshly created for passion and pleasure. Every- 
thing about her, even the frame that surrounded her 
beauty, the dwelling, perfumed with passionate love, dis- 
tractedly captivated Sulpice. Behind the dense curtains 
in the dressing-room upholstered like a boudoir, with its 
carpet intended only for naked feet, as the reclining 
chair with its extra covering of Oriental silk was 
adapted to moments of languishing repose, Sulpice saw 
and contemplated the vast wardrobe with its three mir- 
rors reflecting the huge marble washstand with its silver 
spigots, its silver bowl, wherein the scented water gleamed 
opal-like with its perfumes, the gas illuminating the 
brushes decorated with monograms, standing out against 
the white marble, the manicure sets of fine steel, the 
dark-veined tortoise-shell combs, the coquettish super- 
fluity of scissors and files scattered about amongst knick- 
knacks, inlaid enamels, and Japanese ivory ornaments, 
and there, stretched out and watching Marianne, who 
came and went before him with a smile on her face, her 
hair unfastened, sometimes with bare shoulders, Sulpice 
saw, through a half-open door in the middle of a bath- 
room floored with blue Delft tiles, the bath that steamed 
with a perfumed vapor, odorous of thyme, and the water 
which was about to envelop in its warm embrace that 


PART SECOND 


307 

rosy form that displayed beneath the lights and under 
the full blaze of the gas, the nudity of her flesh beneath 
a transparent Surah chemise, silky upon the living silk. 

Milk-white reflections seemed to play on her shoulders 
and Sulpice never forgot those ardent visions that fol- 
lowed him, clung to him, thrust themselves before his 
gaze and into his recollections, never leaving him, either 
at the Chamber, the Council Board or even when he was 
with Adrienne. — The young woman, seeing his absorp- 
tion, hesitated to disturb his thoughts, political as they 
were, no doubt, while he mused upon his hours of volup- 
tuous enjoyment, forever recalling the youthful round- 
ness of her shoulders, and the inflections- of her body, 
the ivory-like curve of her neck, whose white nape rested 
upon him, and her curls escaped from the superb arrange- 
ment of her hair, held in its place at the top by a comb 
thrust into this fair mass like a claw plunged into flesh. 

Vaudrey must have had an active and prompt intelli- 
gence at times to forget suddenly these passionate 
images, when he unexpectedly found himself compelled 
to ascend the tribune during a discussion or to express 
his opinion clearly at the Ministerial Council. He in- 
creased his power, finding, perhaps, a new excitement, a 
new spur in the love that renewed his youth. He had 
never been seen more active and more stirring in the 
Chamber, though he was somewhat nervous. He deter- 
mined to put himself in evidence at the Ministry, and to 
prove to the phrase-monger Warcolier that he knew how 


308 his excellency the minister 

to act. The President of the Council, Monsieur Collard 
— of Nantes— said several times to Sulpice : 

“Too much zeal, my dear minister. A politician 
ought to be cooler.” 

“ I shall be cooler with age ! ” Sulpice replied with a 
laugh. 

From time to time he went to seek advice from Ramel, 
as he had promised. The little shopkeepers and laun- 
dresses of Rue Boursault hardly suspected when they saw 
a coupd stop at the door of the old journalist, that a 
minister alighted from it. 

Sulpice felt amid the bustle of his life, amid the spur- 
ring and over-excited events of his existence, the need of 
talking with his old friend. Besides, Rue Boursault was 
on the way to Rue Prony. As Marianne was frequently 
not at home, Sulpice would spend the time before her 
return in chatting with Ramel. 

“Well ! Ramel, are you satisfied with me? ” 

“ How could I be otherwise? You are an honest man 
and faithful and devoted to your ideas. I am not afraid 
of you, but I am of those by whom you are surrounded.” 

“ Warcolier? ” 

“ Warcolier and many others, of those important fel- 
lows who ask me — when they deign to speak to me — 
with an insignificant air of superiority and almost of pity, 
the idiots : ‘ Well ! you are no longer doing anything ! 

When will you do something?’ As if I had not done 
too much already, seeing that I have made them ! ” 


PART SECOND 


3°9 

Denis Ramel smiled superciliously and the minister 
looked with a sort of respect at this vanguard warrior, 
this laborer of the early morn who had never received 
his recompense or even claimed it. 

“ I should like you to resume your journal in order 
to announce all these truths,” Vaudrey said to him. 

“ Do you think so ? Why, a journal that would pro- 
claim the truth to everybody would not last six months, 
since no one would buy it.” 

As Sulpice was about to go, there was a ring at Ramel’s 
door. 

“Ah ! who can it be? A visit. I beg you will excuse 
me, my dear Vaudrey.” 

Denis went to open the door. 

It was a man of about fifty, dressed in the garb of a 
poor workman, wearing a threadbare greatcoat and 
trousers that were well polished at the knees, who as he 
entered held his round, felt hat in his hand. He was 
thin, pale and tired-looking, with a dark, dull complexion 
and a voice weak rather than hoarse. He bowed 
timidly, repeating twice : “ I earnestly ask your pardon ; ” 
and then he remained standing on the threshold, without 
advancing or retiring, in an embarrassed attitude, while 
a timid smile played beneath his black beard, already 
sprinkled with gray. 

“ Pardon — I disturb you — I will return — ” 

“ Come in, Gamier,” said Ramel. 

The man entered, saluting Vaudrey, who was not 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


3 10 

known to him, and at a gesture from Denis, he took a seat 
on the edge of a chair, scarcely sitting down and constantly 
twirling his round-shaped hat between his lean fingers. 
From time to time, he raised his left hand to his mouth to 
check the sound of a dry cough which rose in his mus- 
cular throat, that might be supposed to be a prey to 
laryngitis. 

“You ask for the truth — Listen a moment, a single 
moment,” Ram el whispered in the ear of the minister. 

Without mentioning Sulpice’s name, he began to 
question Gamier, who grew bolder and talked and gos- 
siped, his cheek-bones now and then heightened in color 
by small, pink spots. 

“Well! Gamier, about the work? — Oh! you may 
speak before monsieur, it interests him.” 

The man shrugged his shoulders with a sad, some- 
what bitter smile, but resigned at least. He very quietly, 
but without any complaint, acknowledged all that he was 
enduring. Work was in a bad way. It appeared that it 
was just the same everywhere in Europe, in fact, but 
indeed that doesn’t provide work at the shop. The 
master, a kind man, in faith, had grown old, and was 
anxious to sell his business of an art metal worker. He 
had not found a purchaser, then he had simply closed 
his shop, being too ill to continue hard work, and the 
four or five workmen whom he employed found themselves 
thrown into the street. There it is ! Happily for Gar- 
nier, he had neither wife nor child, nothing but his own 


PART SECOND 


3ii 

carcass. One can always get one’s self out of a diffi- 
culty, but the others who had households and brats ! 
Rousselet had five. Matters were not going to be very 
cheerful at home. He must rely on charity or credit, he 
did not know what, but something to stave off that distress, 
real and sad distress, since it was not merited. 

Do you interest yourself in politics?” asked Vau- 
drey curiously, surmising that this man was possessed of 
strong and quick intelligence, although he looked so 
worn and crushed and his cough frequently interrupted 
his remarks. 

Gamier looked at Ramel before replying, then an- 
swered in a quiet tone : 

“ Oh ! not now ! That is all over. I vote like every- 
body else, but I let the rest alone. I have had my 
reckoning.” 

He had said all this in a low tone without any bitter- 
ness and as if burdened with painful memories. 

“It is, however, strange, all the same,” added the 1 
workman, “ to observe that the more things change, the 
more alike they are. Instead of occupying themselves 
over there with interpellations and seeking to overthrow 
or to strengthen administrations, would it not be better 
if they thought a little of those who are dying of hunger? 
for there are some, it is necessary to admit that such are 
not wanting ! What is it to me whether Pichereau or 
. Vaudrey be minister, when I do not know at the moment 
where I shall sleep when I have spent my savings, and 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


312 

whether the baker will give me credit now that I am 
without a shop? ” 

At the mention of Vaudrey’s name, Ram el wished to 
make a sign to this man, but Sulpice had just seized the 
hand of his old friend and pressed it as if to entreat him 
not to interrupt the conversation. The voice that he 
heard, interrupted by a cough, was the voice of a work- 
man and he did not hear such every day. 

“ Note well that I am not a blusterer or a disturber, 
isn’t that so, Monsieur Ramel? I have always been 
content with my lot, myself — One receives and executes 
orders and one is satisfied. Everything goes on all 
right — My politics at present is my work ; when I shall 
have broken my back to bring journalists into power — I 
beg your pardon, Monsieur Ramel, you know very well 
that it is not of you that I speak thus — I shall be no 
fatter for it, I presume. I only want just to keep life 
and soul together, if it can be done. I suppose you 
could not find me a place, Monsieur Ramel? I would 
do anything, heavy work if need be, or bookkeeping, if 
it is desired. I would like bookkeeping better, although 
it is not my line, because the forge fire, the coal and 
heat, as you see, affect me there now — he touched his 
neck — it strangles me and hastens the end too quickly. 
It is true for that I am in the world.” 

Vaudrey felt himself stirred even to his bones by the 
mournful, musical voice of the consumptive, by this true 
misery, this poverty expressed without phrases and this 


PART SECOND 


313 

claim of labor. All the questions yonder , as Gamier 
said, in the committees and sub-committees, in the trib- 
une and in the lobbies, discussions, disputes, personal 
questions cloaked under the guise of the general welfare, 
suddenly appeared to him as petty and vain, narrow and 
egotistical beside the formidable question of bread which 
was propounded to him so quietly by this man of the 
people, who was not a rebel of the violent days, but the 
unfortunate brother, the eternal Lazarus crying, without 
threat, but simply, sadly : “ And I ? ” 

He would have liked without making himself known, 
to give something to this sufferer, to promise him a po- 
sition. He did not dare to offer it or to mention his 
name. The man would have refused charity and the 
minister, in all the personnel of bustling employes, often 
useless, that fill the ministry, had not a single place to 
give to this workman whose chest was on fire and whose 
throat was choking. 

“ I will return and we will talk about him,” he said to 
Ramel, as he arose, indicating Gamier by a nod. “ Do 
not tell him who I am. On my word, I should be 
ashamed — Poor devil ! ” 

“ Multiply him by three or four hundred thousand, 
and be a statesman,” said Ramel. 

Vaudrey bowed to the workman, who rose quickly and 
returned his salute with timid eagerness, and the minister 
went rapidly down the stairs of the little house and 
jumped into his carriage, making haste to get away. 


3H 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


lie bore with him a feeling akin to remorse, and in all 
sincerity, for he still heard ringing in his ears, the poor 
consumptive’s voice saying : 

“ What is it to me, who am suffering, whether Vaudrey 
or Pichereau be minister? ” . 

On reaching Place Beauvau, he found a despatch re- 
questing his immediate presence at the Idys£e. At the 
Palace he received information that surprised him like a 
thunderbolt. Monsieur Collard — of Nantes — had just 
been struck down by apoplexy in the corridors of the 
ministry. The President of the Council was dead and the 
Chief of the State had turned to Vaudrey to fill the high 
position which, but two hours before, had been held by 
Monsieur Collard. 

President of the Council ! He, Vaudrey ! Head of 
the Ministry ! The first in his country after the supreme 
head ? The joyful surprise that such a proposition caused 
him, so occupied his mind that he was unable to feel very 
much moved by the loss of Monsieur Collard— of Nantes — . 
Sulpice, moreover, had never profoundly cared for this 
austere advocate, although he had been much associated 
with him. His liking for this man who brought to the 
Council old-time opinions and preconceived ideas was a 
merely political affection. The President’s offer proved 
to him that his own popularity, as well as his influence 
over parliament, had only increased since his recent 
entry on public life. He was then about to be in a position 
to assert his individuality still better. What a glorious 


PART SECOND 


3 X 5 

time for Grenoble and what wry faces Granet would 
make ! 

Sulpice hastened to announce this news to Adrienne, 
although it would not become official until after Collard’s 
funeral obsequies. He returned almost triumphantly to 
the Hotel Beauvau. Only one thought, a sombre image 
clouded his joy : it was not the memory of Collard, but 
the sad image of the man whom he had met at Ramel’s, 
and who, when the Officiel should speak, should make 
the announcement, would shrug his shoulders and say 
ironically : 

“ Well ! and what then? ” 

He had scarcely whispered these words to Adrienne : 
“ President of the Council ! I am President of the Coun- 
cil ! ” when, without being astonished at the faint, almost 
indifferent smile that escaped the young wife, he sud- 
denly thought that he was under obligation to make a 
personal visit to the Ministry of Justice where Collard 
was lying dead. 

He ordered himself to be driven quickly to Place 
Vendome. 

At every moment, carriages brought to the ministry 
men of grave mien, decorated with the red ribbon, who 
entered wearing expressions suitable to the occasion and 
inscribed their names in silence on the register, passing 
the pen from one to another just as the aspergillus is 
passed along in church. Everybody stood aside on no- 
ticing Vaudrey. It seemed to him that they instinctively 


3 1 6 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

divined that Collard being out of the way it was he who 
must be the man of the hour, the necessary man, the 
President of the Council marked out in advance, the 
chief of the coming ministry. 

“ Poor Collard ! ” thought Sulpice, as he inscribed his 
name on the register. “ One will never be able to say : 
the Collard Administration. But it would be glorious if 
one day history said : the Vaudrey Administration .** 

He re-entered the Hotel Beauvau, inflated with the 
idea. In the antechamber, there were more office- 
seekers than were usually in attendance. One of them, 
on seeing Vaudrey, rose and ran to him and said quickly 
to Sulpice, who did not stop : 

“ Ah ! Monsieur le Ministre — What a misfortune — 
Monsieur Collard — If there were no eminent men like 
Your Excellency to replace him ! — ” 

Vaudrey bowed without replying. 

“ What is the name of that gentleman?” said he as 
soon as he entered his cabinet, to the usher who fol- 
lowed him. “ I always find him, but I cannot recognize 
him.” 

“ He ! Monsieur le Ministre? Why, that is Monsieur 
Eugene ! ” 

“ Ah ! very good ! That is right ! The eternal Mon- 
sieur Eugene ! ” 

Just then Warcolier opened the door, looking more 
morose than sad, and holding a letter that he crushed in 
his hand, while at the same time he greeted Vaudrey 


PART SECOND 


317 

with a number of long phrases concerning the dreadful, 
unexpected, sudden, unlooked-for, crushing death — he 
did not select his epithets, but allowed them to flow as 
from an overrunning cask — the dramatic decease of 
Collard — of Nantes — . From time to time, Warcolier, 
while speaking, cast an involuntary, angry glance at the 
paper that he tw T isted in his fingers, so much so that Vau- 
drey, feeling puzzled, at last asked him what the letter 
was. 

“ Don’t speak to me about it — ” said the fat man. 
“ An imbecile ! ” 

“ What imbecile? ” 

“ An imbecile whom I received with some little cour- 
tesy the other morning — I who, nevertheless, go to so 
much trouble to make myself agreeable.” 

“ And that is no sinecure ! — Well, the imbecile in 
question? ” 

“ Left furious, no doubt, because of the reception ac- 
corded him — And to me, me, the Under-Secretary of 
State, this is the letter that he writes, that he dares to 
write ! Here, Monsieur le Ministre, listen ! Was ever 
such stupidity seen ? ‘ Monsieur le Secretaire cT Etat , you 

have under your orders a very badly trained Under- 
secretary of State, who will make you many enemies, I 
warn you. As you are his direct superior, I permit my- 
self to notify you of his conduct, ’ etc., etc. You laugh? ” 
said Warcolier, seeing that a smile was spreading over 
Vaudrey’s blond-bearded face. 


3 i8 his excellency the minister 

“ Yes, it is so odd ! — Your correspondent is evidently 
ignorant that there are only Under-Secretaries of State 
in the administration ! — unless this innocent is not 
simply an insolent fellow.” 

“ If I thought that ! ” said Warcolier, enraged. “ No, 
but it is true,” he said with astonishing candor, a com- 
plete overflowing of his satisfied egotism, “ there are a 
lot of people who ask for everything and are good for 
nothing ! — Malcontents ! — I should like to know why 
they are malcontents ! — What are they dreaming about, 
then? What do they want? I am asking myself ever 
since I came into office : What is it they want? Doesn’t 
the present government carry out the will of the major- 
ity? — It is just like those journalists with their nagging 
articles ! — They squall and mock ! What they print is 
disgusting ! Granted that we have demanded liberty, 
but that does not mean license ! ” 

While Warcolier, entirely concerned about himself, 
with erect head and oratorical gesture, spoke as if in 
the presence of two thousand hearers, Sulpice Vaudrey 
again recalled, still sad and sick, the dark and sunken 
cheeks and the colorless ears, the poor projecting ears 
of the consumptive Gamier with whom he had come in 
contact at Ramel’s. 

He was anxious to be with Adrienne again, and above 
all, with Marianne. What would his mistress say to him 
when she knew of his reaching the presidency of the 
Council? 


PART SECOND 


3 1 9 

Adrienne had certainly received the news with little 
pleasure. 

“ If you are happy ! ” — was all she said, with a sigh. 

It was the very expression she had used at the moment 
when, on the formation of the “ Collard Cabinet,” he 
had gone to her and cried out : “ I am a minister ! ” 

Adrienne was impassive. 

In truth, Sulpice was beginning to think that she was 
too indifferent to the serious affairs of life. The delight- 
ful joys of intimacy, now, moreover, discounted, ought 
not to make a woman forget the public successes of her 
husband. Instinctively comparing this gentle, slender 
blonde, resigned and pensive, with Marianne, with her 
tawny locks and passionate nature, whom he adored 
more intensely each day, Vaudrey thought that a man 
in his position, with his ambition and merit, would have 
been more powerfully aided, aye, even doubled in power 
and success by a creature as strongly intelligent, as 
energetic and as fertile in resource as Mademoiselle 
Kayser. 

He still had before him a peculiar smile of indefinable 
superiority expressed by his mistress when Adrienne and 
Marianne chanced to meet one evening at the theatre, 
which made him feel that his mistress was watching and 
analyzing his wife. The next day, Marianne with ex- 
quisite grace, but keen as a poisoned dart, said to him : 

“ Do you know, my dear, Madame Vaudrey is charm- 
ing?” 


3 20 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


He felt himself blush at these words hurled at him 
point-blank, then his cheeks grew cold. Never, till that 
moment, had Mademoiselle Kayser mentioned Adrienne’s 
name. 

“ You like blondes, I see ! ” said Marianne. “ I am 
almost inclined to be jealous ! ” 

“Will you do me a great favor?” then interrupted 
Sulpice. “ Never let us speak of her. Let us speak of 
ourselves.” 

“Yes,” continued the perfidious Marianne in a patron- 
izing tone, as if she had not heard him, “ she is certainly 
charming ! A trifle — just a trifle — bourgeoise — But 
charming ! Decidedly charming ! ” 

Knowing Vaudrey well, she understood what a keen 
weapon she was plunging straight into him. A little 
bourgeoise / This conclusion rendered by the Parisienne 
with a smile now haunted Sulpice, who was annoyed at 
himself and he sought to discover in his wife, the dear 
creature whom he had so tenderly loved, whom he still 
loved, some self-satisfying excuse for his passion and 
adultery. 

“Bah!” he thought. “Is it adultery? There is no 
adultery save for the wife. The husband’s faithlessness 
is called a caprice, an adventure, a craving or madness of 
the senses. Only the wife is adulterous.” 

In all candor, what sin had he committed? Was Adri- 
enne less loved? He would have sacrificed his life for 
her. He overwhelmed her with presents, created sur- 


PART SECOND 


321 

prises for her that she received without emotion, and 
simply said in a doleful tone : 

“ How good you are, my dear ! ” 

He was ruining neither her nor his children ! Ah ! 
if he but had children ! Why had not Adrienne had 
children? A woman should be a mother. It is mater- 
nity that in the marriage estate justifies a man in aban- 
doning his freedom and a woman her shame. 

A mother ! And was Marianne a mother? 

No, but Marianne was Marianne. Marianne was not 
created for the domestic fireside and the cradle. Her 
statuesque and seductively lovely limbs only craved for 
the writhings of pleasure, not the pangs of maternity. 
Adrienne, on the contrary, was the wife, and the child- 
less wife soon took another name : the friend. No, he 
robbed her of nothing, Adrienne lost none of his affec- 
tion, none of his fortune. The money squandered at 
Rue Prony, Vaudrey had acquired ; it was the savings 
of the honest people of Saint- Laurent-du-Pont, the 
parents, the old /oiks, that he threw — as in smelting — 
into the crucible of the girl’s mansion. 

Adrienne expressed no desire that was not fulfilled, 
and Sulpice who was, moreover, confident and lulled by 
her quietude, felt no remorse. He did not enquire if 
his passion for Marianne would endure. He flung him- 
self upon this love as upon some prey ; nor was desire 
the only influence that now attached him to this woman, 

he was drawn to her also by the admiration that he felt 
21 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


3 22 

for her boldness of thought, her singular opinions, her 
careless expressions, her devilish .spirit, her appetizing 
and voluptuous attractions surprised and ensnared him — 

What a counselor and ally such a woman w r ould be ! 

Well and good ! When Vaudrey informed her that he 
was about to become first minister, to preside over the 
Council, to show his power — this was his eternal watch- 
word — Marianne immediately comprehended the new 
situation and what increase of influence in the country 
such a fortunate event would give him. 

He observed with pleasure that something like a joy- 
ful beam gleamed in Mademoiselle Kayser’s gray eyes. 

She also doubtless thought that it was desirable to 
take advantage of the occasion, to seize and cling to the 
opportunity. 

“Then it is official? ” she asked. 

“ Not yet. But it is certain.” 

What could Marianne hope for? Again, she had no 
well-defined object ; but she watched her opportunity 
and since Vaudrey’ s power was enlarged, well, she was 
to profit by it. Claire Dujarrier, who had already served 
her so well, could be useful to her again and advise her 
advantageously. That will be seen. 

“Are you desirous of attending Collard’s funeral? ” 
Vaudrey asked Marianne. 

She laughed as she asked : 

“ Why ! what do you think that would be to me ? ” 

u It will be very fine. All the authorities, the mag • 


PART SECOND 


323 

istrates, the Institute, the garrison of Parrs will be 
present.” 

“Then you think it is amusing to see soldiers file 
past? I am not at all curious ! You will describe it all 
to me and that will be quite sufficient for me.” - 

Vaudrey walked at the head of the cortege that ac- 
companied through Place Vendome and Rue de la Paix, 
black with the crowd, the funeral procession of Collard 
— of Nantes — to the Madeleine. Troops Of the line in 
parade uniforms lined the route. Prom time to time 
was heard the muffled roll of drums shrouded in crepe. 
The funeral car was immense and was crowded with 
wreaths. As with bowed head he accompanied the 
funeral procession of his ’colleague, almost his friend, — 
but, bah ! friendship of committees and sub-committees ! 
— Sulpice was sufficiently an artist to be somewhat im- 
pressed with the contrast afforded by the display of offi- 
cial pomp crowning the rather, obscure life of the Nantes 
advocate. He had ever obtrusively before him, as if 
haunted by the spectre of the Poor Man before Don 
Juan, the lean face of Gamier and the white moustache 
of Ramel. Which of the two had better served his 
cause, Ramel vanquished or Collard — of Nantes — dying 
in the full blaze of success ? 

He pondered over this during the whole of the cere- 
mony. He thought of it while the notes of the organ 
swelled forth, while the blue flames of the burning incense 
danced, and while the butts of the soldiers’ muskets 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


3 2 4 

sounded from time to time on the flagstones, as the 
men stood around the bier and followed the orders of the 
officer who commanded them. 

On leaving the ceremony, Granet approached Sulpice 
while gently stroking his waxed moustache, and said in 
an ironical tone : 

“ Do you know that it is suggested that a statue be raised 
in Collard’s honor? ” 

“ Really?” 

“ Yes, because he is considered to have shown a great 
example.” 

“What?” 

“ He is one of those rare cases of ministers dying in 
office. Imitate him, my dear minister, — to the latest 
possible moment.” 

Sulpice made an effort to smile at Granet’s pleas- 
antry. This cunning fellow decidedly displeased him ; 
but there was nothing to take offence at, it was mere 
diplomatic pleasantry expressed politely. 

Before returning to the ministry, Vaudrey had himself 
driven to Rue Prony. Jean, the domestic, told him that 
Madame had gone out ; she had been under the neces- 
sity of going to her uncle’s. After all, Sulpice thought 
this was a very simple matter ; but he was determined 
to see Marianne, so he ordered his carriage to be driven 
to the artist’s studio. Uncle Kayser opened the door, 
bewildered at receiving a call from the minister and, at 
the same time, showed that he was somewhat uneasy, 


PART SECOND 


325 

coughing very violently, as if choked with emotion or 
perhaps as a signal to some one. 

“ Is Mademoiselle Kayser here? ” asked Sulpice. 

“ Yes — Ah ! how odd it is— Chance wills that just 
now one of our friends — a connoisseur of pictures — ” 

Vaudrey had already thrust open the door of the 
studio and he perceived, sitting near Marianne and hold- 
ing his hat in his hand, a young man with pale com- 
plexion and reddish beard, whom Mademoiselle Kayser, 
rising quickly and without any appearance of surprise, 
eagerly presented to him : 

“ Monsieur Jose de Rosas ! ” 

In the simple manner in which she had pronounced 
this name, she had infused so triumphant an expression, 
such manifest ostentation, that Vaudrey felt himself sud- 
denly wounded, struck to the heart. 

He recalled everything that Marianne had said to him 
about this man. 

He greeted Rosas with somewhat frigid politeness and 
from the tone in which Marianne began to speak to him, 
he at once realized that she had some interest in allow- 
ing the Spaniard to surmise nothing. She unduly em- 
phasized the title by which she addressed him, repeating 
a little too frequently : “ Monsieur le Ministre — ” When- 
ever Vaudrey sought to catch her glance she looked away 
in a strange fashion and managed to avoid carrying on any 
formal conversation with Sulpice. On the contrary, she 
addressed Rosas affably, asking what he had done in 


326 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

London, what he had become and what he brought back 
new. 

“Nothing,” Jos£ answered with a peculiar expression 
that displeased Vaudrey. It evidenced the conviction 
that one lives only in Paris surrounded by persons whom 
one vainly seeks to avoid and toward whom one always 
returns — in spite of one’s self, at times. 

Vaudrey observed the almost proud, triumphant ex- 
pression that flashed in Marianne’s eyes. He vaguely 
realized an indirect confession expressed in that trite 
remark made by Rosas. The Spaniard’s voice trembled 
slightly as he spoke. 

Marianne smiled as she listened. 

“You have taken a new journey, monsieur?” asked 
Sulpice, uncertain what bearing to assume. 

“ Oh ! just a temporary absence ! A trip to Lon- 
don — ” 

“ Have you returned long? ” 

“ Only this morning.” 

His first call was at Simon Kayser’s house, where per- 
haps, he expected to see Marianne. And the proof — 

Vaudrey instinctively thought that it was a very hasty 
matter to call so soon on Uncle Kayser. This man’s 
first visit was not to the painter’s studio, but in reality to 
the woman who — Sulpice still heard Marianne declare 
that — who would not become his mistress. There was 
something strange in that. Eh ! parbleu / it was per- 
haps Monsieur de Rosas who had sent for Marianne. 


PART SECOND 


327 

She endeavored to make it clear that only chance was 
responsible for bringing them together here, but Sulpice 
doubted, he was uneasy and angry. 

He felt almost determined to declare, if it were only 
by a word, the prize of possession, the conquest of this 
woman, whom he felt that Rosas was about to contend 
with him for. 

She surmised everything and interrupted Sulpice even 
before he could have spoken and, with a sort of false 
respect, displayed before Rosas the friendship which 
Monsieur le Ministre desired to show her and of which 
she was proud. 

“ By the way, my dear minister, as to your appoint- 
ment as President of the Council ? ” 

Vaudrey knit his brows. 

“ That is so ! I ask your pardon. I am betraying a 
state secret. Monsieur de Rosas will not abuse it. 
Isn’t that so, Monsieur le Due? ” 

Rosas bowed ; Vaudrey was growing impatient. 

“ Madame Vaudrey will, of course, be delighted at this 
appointment, Monsieur le Ministre?” continued Mari- 
anne. 

She smiled at Sulpice who was greatly astonished to 
hear Adrienne’s name mentioned there ; then, turning to 
Rosas, she charmingly depicted a quasi-idyllic sketch of 
the affection of Monsieur le Ministre for Madame Vau- 
drey. A model household. There was nothing surpris- 
ing in that, moreover. “ Monsieur le Ministre ” was so 


328 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

amiable — yes, truly amiable, without any flattery, — and 
Madame Vaudrey so charming ! 

Sulpice, who was very nervous and had become 
slightly pale, endeavored to discover the meaning of this 
riddle. He asked himself what Marianne was thinking 
about, what she meant to say or dissimulate. 

Monsieur de Rosas sat motionless on his chair, very 
cool, looking calmly on without speaking a word. 

He seemed to await an opportunity to leave the 
studio, and since Vaudrey had arrived he had only 
spoken a few brief phrases in strict propriety. 

Marianne, all smiles and happy, with beaming eyes, 
interrogated Vaudrey and sought to provide a subject of 
conversation for the unexpected interview of these two 
men. Was there a great crowd at Collard’s funeral? 
Who had sung at the ceremony? Vaudrey answered 
these questions rapidly, like a man absorbed in other 
thoughts. 

After a moment’s interval, Monsieur de Rosas arose 
and bowed to Marianne with gentlemanly formality. 

“Are you going, my dear duke? ” 

“ Yes, I have seen you again. You are getting along 
well. I am satisfied.” 

“You will come again, at any rate? My uncle has 
some new compositions to show you.” 

“ Oh ! great ideas,” began Kayser. “ Things that 
will make famous frescoes ! — For a palace — or the 
Pantheon ! — either one ! ” 




































PART SECOND 


329 

He had looked alternately at the duke and Vaudrey. 

Rosas bowed to the minister and withdrew without 
replying, followed by Kayser and Marianne who, on 
reaching the threshold of the salon, seized his hand and 
pressed it nervously within her own soft one and said 
quickly : 

“ You will return, oh ! I beg you ! Ah ! it is too bad 
to have run away ! You will come back L” 

She was at once entreating and commanding him. 
Rosas did not reply, but she felt in the trembling of his 
hand, as he pressed her own, in his brilliant glance, that 
she would see him again. And since he had returned to 
Paris alone, weary of being absent from her, perhaps, 
seeing that he had hastened back after having desired 
to free himself from her, did it not seem this time that 
he was wholly captivated? 

All this was expressed by a pressure of the fingers, a 
glance, a sigh. 

Rosas went rapidly away, like one distracted. Mari- 
anne, who motioned to Uncle Kayser to disappear, re- 
appeared in the studio, entirely self-possessed. 

Vaudrey had risen from the divan on which he had 
been sitting and he was standing, waiting. 

“ I believed that I understood that you had dismissed 
Monsieur de Rosas? ” 

“ I might have told you that I did so, since it is 
true.” 

“ You smiled at him, nevertheless, just now.” 


330 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ Yes.” 

“ A man who begged you to be his mistress ! ” 

“ And whom I rejected, yes ! ” 

She looked at Sulpice with her winsome, sidelong 
glance, curling her lovely pink lips that he had kissed so 
many times. 

“Then you love that man? ” 

“ I ! not at all, only it is flattering to me to have him 
return like that, just like some penitent little boy.” 

“ I do not understand — ” 

“ Parbleu / you are not a woman, that is all that that 
proves ! — It is irritating to our self-love to see people 
too promptly accept the dismissal one gives them. 
What ! Don’t they suffer? Don’t they say anything? 
Don’t they complain? Monsieur de Rosas comes back 
to me, that proves that he was hurt, and I triumph. 
Now, do you understand?” 

“ And — that joy that I observed is — ? ” 

“ It is because Monsieur de Rosas is in Paris.” 

“And you don’t love him? You don’t love him? ” 
asked Vaudrey, clasping Marianne’s hands in his. 

She laughed and said : 

“ I do not love him in the least.” 

“ And you love me?” 

“Yes, you, I love you ! ” 

“ Marianne, you know that it would be very wicked 
and wrong to lie? It is not necessary to love me at all 
if you must cease to love me!” 


PART SECOND 


33i 

“ In other words, one should never lend money unless 
one is obliged to lend one’s whole fortune.” 

He felt extremely dissatisfied with Marianne’s ironical 
remark. She looked at him with an odd expression 
which was all the more disquieting and intoxicating. 

“Let us speak no more about that, shall we?” she 
said. “ I repeat to you that I am satisfied at having 
seen Monsieur de Rosas again, because it affords my 
self-love its revenge. Now, whether he comes back or 
not, it matters little to me. He has made the amende 
honorable. That is the principal thing, and you, my 
dear, must not be jealous ; I find Othello’s role tire- 
some ; oh ! yes, tiresome ! — The more so, because 
you have no right to treat me as a Desdemona. The 
Code does not permit it.” 

“ You want to remind me again, then, that I am mar- 
ried ? A moment ago, you stabbed me by pin-thrusts.” 

“In speaking of your household? Say then with 
knife-thrusts.” 

“ Why did you mention my wife before Monsieur de 
Rosas? ” 

“Why,” said Marianne, “you do not understand any- 
thing. It was for your sake, for you alone, in order to 
explain the presence in Marianne’s house, of a minister 
who is considered to lead a puritan life. Nothing could 
be more simple ! — Would you have me tell him that 
you neglect your wife and that you are my lover ? Per- 
haps you would have liked that better ! ” 


33 2 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ Yes, perhaps,” said Vaudrey passionately. 

“Vain fellow ! ” the pretty girl said as she placed upon 
his mouth her little hand which he kept upon his lips. 
“Then you would like me to parade our secrets every- 
where and to publicly announce our happiness?” 

“ I should like,” he said, as he removed his lips from 
the soft palm of her hand, “ that all the world should 
know that you are mine, mine only — only mine, are you 
not ? — That man ? ’ ’ 

His eyes entreated her and lost their fire. 

Marianne shrugged her shoulders. 

“ Let Monsieur de Rosas alone in tranquillity and let 
us return to my house, our house” she said, with a ten- 
der expression in her eyes. 

“You do not love him? ” 

“ No.” 

“ And you love me?" 

“ I have told you so.” 

“ You love me? You love me? ” 

“ I love you ! — Ah ! ” she said, “ how unhappy you 
would be, nevertheless, if I told you aloud some day in 
one of the lobbies of the Assembly what you ask me to 
repeat here in a whisper.” 

“ I should prefer that to losing you and to knowing 
that you did not love me.” 

“ He is telling the truth, however, the great fool ! ” 
cried Marianne, laughing. 

“ The real, sincere, profound truth ! ” 


PART SECOND 


333 

He drew her to him, seated on the vulgar divan 
where Simon Kayser was wont to display his paradoxes, 
and encircling her waist with both arms he felt her 
yielding form beneath her satin gown, and wished her to 
bend her fair face to his lips that were craving a kiss. 

Marianne took his face between her soft hands, and 
looking at him with an odd smile, tender and ironical at 
once, at this big simpleton who was completely domi- 
nated by her mocking tenderness, she said : 

“ You are just the same Sulpice ! ” — as she spoke, she 
bent over him engagingly, and laughed merrily while he 
kissed her. 


IV 

Jos£ de Rosas thought himself much more the master 
of himself than he actually was. 

This energetic man, firm as a very fine steel blade, 
had hoped to find that in living at a distance from 
Marianne, he might forget her or at least strengthen 
himself against her influence. He found on his return 
that he was, however, more seduced by her than before, 
his heart was wholly filled and gnawed by the distracting 
image of the pretty girl. He had borne away with him 
to London, as everywhere in fact, the puzzling smile, the 
sparkling glance of this woman’s gray eyes that cease- 
lessly appeared to him at his bedside, and beside him, 
like some phantom. 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


334 

The phantom of a living creature whose kiss still 
burned his lips like a live coal. A phantom that he 
could clasp in his arms, carry away and possess. All the 
virgin sentiments of this man whose life had been the 
half-savage one of a trapper, a savant or a wanderer, 
turned toward Marianne as to an incarnated hope, a 
living, palpitating chimera. 

Jos6 felt certain that if he returned to Paris it was all 
over with him, and that he was giving his life to that 
woman. But he returned. His fight against himself 
over, the first visit he made, once again, was to the den 
where he knew well that he could discover Marianne’s 
whereabouts. He went to her as he might walk to a 
gulf. Under his cold demeanor of a Castilian of former 
days, he was intensely passionate and would neither 
reflect nor resist. He had experienced that delightful 
sensation of impulse when, upon the rapids at the other 
end of the globe, the river carried into a whirlpool his 
almost engulfed boat. He would doubtless have been 
stupefied had he found Marianne installed in a fashion- 
able little mansion. She promised herself to explain that 
to him when she next saw him while informing him, there 
and then, that she had taken up her abode there. A 
mere whim : Mademoiselle Vanda having gone away, the 
idea had attracted her of sleeping within a courtesan’s 
curtains. “ I will tell him that this transient luxury 
recalls my former follies when I made him believe that 
I was spending an inheritance from my grandmother.” 


PART SECOND 


335 


She had, indeed, already lied to him, for the money 
she had formerly squandered had been provided by De 
Lissac, but even then it was necessary — for the duke was 
in expectancy — to conceal its source from Rosas, hence 
the story of the inheritance that never existed. But she 
at once thoroughly realized that the surroundings which 
were favorable to the progress of the duke’s love were 
not the bedroom and the dressing-room of Mademoiselle 
Vanda. What difference would Rosas have found 
between her and the fashionable courtesans whom he 
had loved, or rather, enriched, in passing? He would 
not believe this new lie this time. 

All that luxury might seduce Sulpice Vaudrey; it 
would have disgusted Jos£. What satisfied the appetite 
of the little, successful bourgeois would nauseate the gen- 
tleman. 

As soon as Rosas returned to her, happy and stupefied 
at the same time, extravagantly happy in his joy, her 
plan of campaign was at once arranged. She did not 
wish to receive him in the vulgar hotel, where the club- 
men had wiped their feet upon the carpets. She en- 
treated him, since he wished to see her again, to see her 
at her “ own house,” yes, really, at her own house, in 
that little, unknown room, in Rue Cuvier, far from the 
noise of Paris and near the Botanical Garden, a kind of 
hidden cell into which no one entered. 

“ No one but me,” she said. 

The order had been given to Uncle Kayser in advance : 


336 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

in case Rosas should reappear, Simon was to at once in- 
form his niece and prevent the duke from discovering 
Marianne’s new address. And this had been done. 

The duke was then going to see Mademoiselle Kayser 
only at Rue Cuvier, after having rediscovered her at 
Uncle Simon’s. 

He felt in advance a kind of gratitude to this woman 
who thus abandoned the secret of her soul to him ; 
giving him to understand that it was there that she 
passed her days, buried in her recollections, dreaming of 
her departed years, of that which had been, of that 
which might be, a living death. 

Marianne had shrewdly divined the case. For this 
great soul, mystery added a new sentiment to the feelings 
that Rosas experienced. The first time that he found 
himself in that little abode where Simon Kayser’s niece 
awaited him, he was deeply moved, as if he had pene- 
trated into the pure chamber of a young girl. There, 
yonder, in that distant quarter, he found a peaceful 
retreat for one wounded by life, thirsting for solitude and 
passing there secret hours in the midst of loved books ; 
in fact, the discreet dwelling of a poor teacher who had 
collected some choice bibelots that she had found by 
chance. Rosas there felt himself surrounded by perfect 
virtue, amid the salvage of a happier past. Marianne thus 
became what he imagined her to be, superior to her lot, 
living an intellectual life, consoling herself for the morti- 
fication of existence and the hideous experiences of life 


PART SECOND 


337 

by poet’s dreams, in building for herself in Paris itself a 
sort of Thebais, where she was finally free and mistress 
of herself and where, when she was sad, she was not 
compelled to wear a mask or a false smile, and was free 
from all pretended gaiety. And she was so often sad ! 

She had occasionally mentioned to Rosas the assumed 
name under which she lived at that place. 

“ Mademoiselle Robert ! ” 

He had manifested surprise thereat. 

“ Yes, I do not wish them to know anything of me, not 
even my name. You should understand the necessity 
that certain minds have for repose and forgetfulness. 
Did not one of your sovereigns take his repose lying in 
his coffin? Well ! I envy him and when I have pushed 
the bolt of my little room in Rue Cuvier, I tremble with 
delight, just as if I felt my heart beating in a coffin. Do 
not tell any one. They would desire to know and see. 
People are so curious and so stupid ! ” 

Marianne now seemed to be still more strange and 
seductive to Rosas. All this romantic conduct, common- 
place as it was, with which she surrounded herself, exalted 
her in the estimation of the duke. She became in that 
little chamber where she was simply Mademoiselle 
Robert, a hundred times more charming and attractive to 
him than any problem : a veritable Parisian sphinx. 

She was not his mistress. He loved her too deeply, 
with a holy, respectful passion, to take her hastily, as 

by chance, and Marianne was too skilful to risk any 
22 


338 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

imprudent act, well-knowing that if she yielded too 
quickly, it would not be a woman who would fall into 
the duke’s arms, but an idol that descended from its 
pedestal. 

In the silence of the old house in the deserted quarter, 
they held conversations in the course of which Rosas 
freely abandoned himself, and through which she gained 
every day a more intimate knowledge of the character 
of that man who was so different from those who hither- 
to had sought her for pleasure. 

Thus, the very respect that he instinctively felt for her, 
impelled her to love him. 

She had not been accustomed to such treatment. 
Every masculine look that since her puberty she had felt 
riveted upon her, clearly expressed even before the lips 
spoke : “ You are beautiful. You please me. Will 
you ? ” Rosas, at least, said : “ I love you,” before : “ I 
desire you.” 

Tainted in the body which she had given, offered, 
abandoned, sold, she felt that she was respected by him 
even in that body, and although she considered him 
silly, she thought him superior to all others, or at least 
different, and that was a sufficient motive for loving 
him. 

One day she said to him in a peculiar tone and with 
her distracting smile : 

“ Do you know, my dear Jos£, there is one thing I 
should not have believed ? You are bashful ! ” 


PART SECOND 


339 


He turned slightly pale. 

“ Sincere love is always bashful and clumsy. By that 
it may be known.” 

“ Perhaps ! ” said Marianne. 

Their conversations, however, only concerned love, so 
that Rosas might speak of his passion or of his remi- 
niscences. 

She once asked him if he would despise a woman if 
she became his mistress. 

“ No ! ” he said, with a smile, “ it is only a Frenchman 
who would despise the woman who surrendered herself. 
Other nations treat love more seriously. They do not 
consider the gift of one’s self in the light of a fall.” 

Marianne looked at him full in the face with a strange 
expression. 

“ What, then, if I love you well enough to become 
your mistress ? ” 

“ I should still esteem you enough to become your 
husband ! ” 

She felt her color change. 

Was it a sport on the part of Monsieur de Rosas ? 
Why had he spoken to her thus ? Had he reflected 
upon what he had just said ? 

Jos£ added in a very gentle tone : 

“ Will you permit me to ask you a question, 
Marianne ? ” 

“You may ask me anything. I will frankly answer all 
your questions.” 


340 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ What was Monsieur Sulpice Vaudrey doing at your 
uncle’s the other day ? Was he there to see you ? ” 

Marianne smiled. 

“ Why, the minister simply came to talk of business 
matters. I hardly see him except for Uncle Kayser, 
who is soliciting an official commission, — you heard 
him — ” 

“ Does Monsieur Vaudrey pay his addresses to you ? ” 

“ Necessarily. Oh ! but only out of pure French 
gallantry. Mere politeness. He loves his wife and he 
knows very well that I don’t love any one.” 

“ No one ? ” asked Rosas. 

“ I do not love any one yet,” repeated Marianne, open- 
ing her gray eyes with a wide stare under the Spaniard’s 
anxious glance. 

From that day, her mind was possessed of a new idea 
that imperiously directed it. When Rosas had returned 
to her, she had only regarded him as a possible lover, 
rich and agreeable. The mistress of a minister, she 
would become the mistress of a duke. A millionaire 
duke. The change would be profitable, assuming that 
she could not retain both. Her calculations were speedily 
made. She would only make Rosas pay more dearly 
for the resistance he had offered before surrendering 
himself. 

But now, abruptly and without her having thought of 
it, he had, with the incautiousness of a soldier who dis- 
closes his attack and lays himself open to a bully who 


PART SECOND 


34i 

tries to provoke him, the duke showed her the extent of 
his violent passion by a single phrase that feverishly 
agitated her. 

His mistress ! Why his mistress, since he had shown 
her that perhaps ? — 

“ Idiot that lam!” thought Marianne. “ Suppose I 
play my cards for marriage ? ” 

She shrugged her shoulders. 

“It will cost no more ! ” 

Married ! Duchess ! and Duchesse de Rosas ! At 
first she laughed. Duchess ! I am asking a little from 
you ! The mistress of Pierre M£ran, the artist’s drudge, 
the wretch who abducted her and debauched her, adding 
his depravity to hers, and who died of consumption 
while quite young, after having plunged this girl into 
vice, this Marianne Kayser, born and moulded for vice : 
she a duchess ! 

“It would be too funny, my dear ! ” she thought. 

Never had Vaudrey, whom she saw that evening at 
Rue Prony, seemed so provincial, or, as she said, so 
Sulpice . Besides, he was gloomy and unable to express 
himself clearly at first, but finally he brought himself to 
acknowledge that he was embarrassed about providing 
for the bill of exchange — she understood — 

“ No, I do not know ! ” 

“ The bill of exchange in favor of Monsieur Gochard ! ” 

“ Ah ! that is so. Well ! if you cannot pay it, my 
dear, I will advise — I will seek — ” 


342 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


There was nothing to seek. Vaudrey would evidently 
get himself out of the affair — but the document matured 
at an unfortunate time. He did not dare to mortgage 
La Sauli&re, his farm at Saint- Laurent-du- Pont. He had 
reflected that Adrienne might learn all about it. And 
then — 

Marianne broke in upon his confidences. 

“ Don’t speak to me about these money matters, my 
friend, you know that sort of thing disgusts me ! — ” 

“ I understand you and ask your pardon.” 

They were to see each other again the next day, as 
parliament was to take a rest. 

“ What joy ! Not to be away from you for the whole 
of the day ! ” remarked Vaudrey. 

“Well then, till to-morrow ! ” 

She felt intense pleasure in being alone again, wrapped 
in her sheets, with the light of the lamp that ordinarily 
shone upon her hours of love with Sulpice, still burning, 
and to be free to dream of her Spanish grandee who had 
said, plainly, with the trembling of passion on his lips : 
“ I should esteem you enough to become your husband ! ” 

She passed the night in reverie. 

Vaudrey, in spite of the joy of the morrow, — a long 
tete-a-tete with his mistress, — thought with increasing 
vexation of the approaching maturity of his bill of ex- 
change ; within two months he would have to pay the 
hundred thousand francs which he had undertaken to 
pay Marianne’s creditor. 


PART SECOND 


343 


“ It is astonishing how quickly time passes ! ” 

At breakfast the following day, Adrienne saw that her 
husband was more than usually preoccupied. 

“ Are political affairs going badly ? ” 

“ No — on the contrary — ” 

“Then why are you melancholy ?” 

“ I am a little fatigued.” 

“Then,” said Madame Vaudrey, “you will scold me.’ 

“Why?” 

“I have led Madame Gerson to hope — You know 
whom I mean, Madame Marsy’s friend, — I have almost 
promised her that you would accept an invitation to dine 
at her house.” 

For a moment Vaudrey was put out. 

Another evening taken ! Hours of delight stolen from 
Marianne ! 

“ I have done wrong? ” asked Adrienne, as she rested 
her pretty but somewhat sad face on her husband’s 
bosom. “ I did it because it is so great a pleasure to 
me to spend an entire evening with you, even at an- 
other’s house. Remember you have so many official 
dinners, banquets and invitations that you attend alone. 
When the minister’s wife is invited with him, it is a 
fete-day for the poor, little forsaken thing. I do not 
have much of you, it is true, but I see you, I hear you 
talking and I am happy. Do not chide me for having 
said that we would go to Madame Gerson’s. The more 
so, because she is a charming woman. Ah ! when she 


344 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


speaks of you ! ‘ So great a minister ! ’ Don’t you 

know what she calls you? — ‘A Colbert ! ’ ” 

Vaudrey could not restrain a smile. 

“ Come, after that, one cannot refuse her invitation. 
It is the Monseigneur of the beggar,” said he, kissing 
Adrienne’s brow. “ And when do we dine at Madame 
Gerson’s? ” 

“ On Monday next ; I shall have at least one delight- 
ful evening to see you,” said the young wife sweetly. 

The minister entered his cabinet* Almost imme- 
diately after, a messenger handed him a card : Molina , 
Ba7iker. 

“ How strange it is ! ” thought Sulpice. “ I had him 
in mind.” 

In the course of his troublesome reflections concern- 
ing the Gochard paper, Vaudrey persistently thought of 
that fat, powerful man who laughed and harangued in a 
loud voice in the greenroom of the ballet, as he patted 
with his fat fingers the delicate chin of Marie Launay. 

Why ! if he were willing, this Molina — Molina the 
Tumbler ! — for him it is a mere bagatelle, a hundred 
thousand francs ! 

Salomon Molina entered the minister’s cabinet just 
as he made his way into the foyer of the Op£ra, with 
swelling chest, tilted chin and stomach thrust forward. 

“ Monsieur le Ministre,” he said in a clear voice, as 
he spread himself out in the armchair that Vaudrey 
pointed out to him, “ I notify you that you have my maiden 

\ 


PART SECOND 


345 

visit ! — I am still in a state of innocency ! On my 
honor, this is the first time I have set my foot within a 
minister’s office ! ” 

He manifested his independence — born of his colos- 
sal influence — by his satisfied and successful air. The 
former Marseillaise clothes-dealer, in his youth pouncing 
upon the sailors of the port and Maltese and Levantine 
seamen, to palm off on them a second-hand coat or 
trousers, as the wardrobe dealers of the Temple hook 
the passer-by, Salomon Molina, who had paraded his 
rags and his hopes on the Canebiere, dreaming at 
the back of his dark shop of the triumphs, the pleasures, 
the revels and the indigestions that money affords, had, 
moreover, always preserved the bitterness of those 
wretched days and his red, Jewish lip expressed the gall 
of his painful experiences. 

His first word as he entered Vaudrey’s cabinet, assert- 
ting the virginity of his efforts at solicitation, betrayed 
his bitterness. 

Now, triumphant, powerful, delighted, feasted and 
fat, his massive form, his gross flesh and his money 
were in evidence all over Paris. His huge paunch, 
shaking with laughter, filled the stage-boxes at the 
theatres. He expanded his broad shoulders as he 
reclined in the caleche that deposited him on race-days 
at the entrance of the weighing-enclosure. He held 
by the neck, as it were, everything of the Parisian quarry 
that yelps and bounds about money, issues of stock, and 


346 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

the food of public fortune : bankers, stock-brokers, and 
jobbers, financial, political and exchange editors, wretches 
running after a hundred sous, statesmen in a fair way to 
fortune ; and he distributed to this little crowd, just as 
he would throw food into a kennel, the discounts and 
clippings of his ventures, taking malicious pleasure, the 
insolent delight of a fortunate upstart, in feigning at the 
moment when loans were issued, sickness that had no 
existence, in order to have the right of keeping his 
chamber, of hearing persons of exalted names ringing 
at his door and dancing attendance upon him, — power- 
ful, influential and illustrious persons, — him, the second- 
hand dealer and chafferer from Marseilles. 

It was then that he tasted the joy of supreme power, 
that delight which titillated even his marrow and after 
having rested all day, the prey of a convenient neural- 
gia, he experienced the unlimited pleasure of force over- 
coming mind, the blow of a fist crushing a weakling, as 
with a white cravat he appeared in some salon in the 
greenroom of the ballet or in the dressing-room of a 
premiere, saying with the mocking smile of triumph and 
the assurance attending a gorged appetite : 

“ I was sick to-day, I suffered from neuralgia ! The 
Minister of Finance called on me ! — Baron Nathan came 
to get information from me!” 

Among all the pleasures experienced by this man, 
he valued feminine virtue occasionally purchased with 
gold as little in comparison with the virgin souls, honor 


PART SECOND 


347 

and virtue that he often succeeded in humiliating, in 
bending before him like a reed, and snuffing out with his 
irony, whenever necessity placed at his mercy any of 
those puritanical beings who had passed sometimes with 
haughty brow before the millions of this man of money. 
It was then that the clothes-dealer took his revenge in 
all its hideousness. There was no pity to be expected 
from this fat, smiling and easy-going man. His fat 
fingers strangled more certainly than the lean hands of a 
usurer. Molina never pardoned. 

Ah ! if this fellow went to see the minister, most as- 
suredly he wanted a favor from him. 

But what? 

It was extraordinary, but before Vaudrey, Molina who 
could hold his own among rascals, found himself ill at 
ease. There was in the frank look of this ninny , as 
Molina the Tumbler had one evening called him while 
talking politics, such direct honesty that the banker, 
accustomed as he was to dealings with sharks and in- 
triguers, did not quite know how to open the question, 
nevertheless a very important matter was in hand. 

“ A rich plum,” thought Molina. 

A matter of railways, a concession to be gained. 
A matter of private interest, disguised under the swell- 
ing terms of the public welfare, the national needs. 
Millions were to be gained. Molina was charged with 
the duty of sounding the President of the Council and 
the Minister of Public Works. Two honest men. The 


348 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

dodge, as the Tumbler said, was to make them swallow 
the affair under the guise of patriotism. A strategical 
railroad. The means of rapid locomotion in case of 
mobilization. With such high-sounding words, strategy , 
frontier, safety, they could carry a good many points. 

Unfortunately, Vaudrey was rather skittish on these 
particular questions, besides he was informed on the 
matter. He felt his flesh creep while Molina was speak- 
ing. Just before, on seeing the banker’s card, the idea 
of the money of which the fat man was one of the in- 
carnations, had suddenly dawned upon him as a hope. 
Who knows? By Molina’s aid, he might, perhaps, free 
himself from anxiety about the Gochard bill of ex- 
change ! — But from the minister’s first words, although 
the banker could not get to the point, intimidated as he 
was by Sulpice’s honest look, it was clear that Vaudrey 
surmised some repugnant suggestions in the hesitating 
words of this man. 

What ! Molina hesitating? He did not go straight to 
the point, squarely, according to his custom, Molina the 
illustrious Tumbler ? Eh! no! the intentionally cold 
bearing of the minister decidedly discomposed him. 
Vaudrey’s glance never wandered from his for a moment. 
When the promoter pronounced the word Bourse, a dis- 
dainful curl played upon Sulpice’s lips, but not a word 
escaped him. Molina heard his own voice break the 
silence of the ministerial cabinet and he felt himself en- 
tangled. He came to propose a combination, a bonus, 


PART SECOND 


349 


and he did not suspect that Vaudrey would refuse to have 
a hand in it. And here, this devilish minister appeared 
not to understand, did not understand, perhaps, or else 
he understood too well. Molina was not accustomed to 
such hard-of-hearing people. With his fat hand, he had 
dropped into the hands of senators and ministers of the 
former regime, a sum for which the only receipt given 
was a smile. He was accustomed to the style of con- 
versation carried on by hints and ended between intelli- 
gent people by a shake of the hand ’ that in which some 
bits of paper rested : bank-notes or paid-up shares. 
And this Vaudrey knew nothing ! So he felt himself 
obliged to explain himself clearly, to stoop to dotting 
every i, at the risk of being shown out of doors. 

Molina was too shrewd to run this risk. He would 
return at another time, seeing that the minister turned a 
deaf ear, but pecaire , he sweat huge drops in seeking 
roundabout phrases, this man who never minced his 
words and habitually called things by their proper names. 
Was the like ever seen ! A pettifogger from Grenoble 
to floor Salomon Molina ! 

“ It made me warm,” said the money-maker, on 
leaving the cabinet, “ but, deuce take it ! I’ll have my 
revenge. One is not a minister always. You shall pay 
me dearly, my little fellow, for that uncomfortable little 
time.” 

Vaudrey had thoroughly understood the matter, but he 
did not intend to allow it to be seen that he did. That 


35 ° 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


was a simpler way. He had not had to dismiss the 
buyer of consciences ; he had enjoyed his embarrassment 
and that was sufficient. 

“What, however, if I had spoken to him of money 
before he had shown his hand ! If I had accepted from 
him — ! ” he said to himself. 

He shuddered at the thought as he had previously 
done while Molina was talking to him. A single im- 
prudence, a single confidence might easily have placed 
him under the hand of this fat man. He must, however, 
find some solution. The days were rolling away and the 
bills signed for Marianne would in a very short time 
reach maturity. 

“When I think that this Molina could in one day 
enable me to gain three times this sum.” 

Salomon had just told him : “ To forestall the news 
on the Bourse is sometimes worth gold ingots ! ” A 
forestaller / As well say the revelation of a State secret, 
base speculation, almost treachery ! And yet on hearing 
these words that covered up an insult, he had not even 
rung for the messenger to show Molina out, but had 
striven to comprehend nothing ! 

As the result of this conversation, he felt uncomfort- 
able. The man had left an odor of pollution, as it were, 
behind him. 

Vaudrey must needs be soon reassured respecting the 
Gochard paper. In visiting Marianne, he observed that 
his mistress was a shrewd woman. She informed him 


PART SECOND 


35i 

immediately that Claire Dujarrier whom she had seen, 
would secure a renewal from Gochard, who was unknown 
to Vaudrey, from three months to three months until the 
expiration of six months in consideration of an additional 
twenty thousand francs for each period of ninety days. 

“ I did not understand that at first,” Marianne began 
by remarking. 

“ Oh ! ” said Sulpice, “ I understand perfectly, it is 
absolute usury. But time is ready money, and in six 
months it will be easier for me to pay one hundred and 
forty thousand francs than a hundred thousand to-day. I 
have plans.” 

“What?” 

“Very difficult to explain, but quite clear in my 
mind ! The important part is not to have the date of 
maturity on the first of June, but on the first of De- 
cember.” 

« Then nothing is more simple. Madame Dujarrier 
will arrange it.” 

“Is Madame Dujarrier a providence then?” 

“Almost,” said Marianne coldly. 

Sulpice was intoxicated with joy, realizing that he had 
before him all the necessary time in which to free him- 
self from his embarrassment, when Marianne should have 
returned him his first acceptance for one hundred thou- 
sand francs against a new one for one hundred and forty 
thousand. He breathed again. From the twenty-sixth 
of April to the first of December,' he had nearly seven 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


35 2 

months in which to free himself. He repeated the cal- 
culation that he had formerly made when he said : “ I 
have ample time ! ” 

He reentered the Hotel Beauvau in a cheerful mood, 
Adrienne was delighted. She feared to see him return 
nervous and dejected. 

“ Then you will be brilliant presently at Madame Ger- 
son’s.” 

“ Stop ! that’s so. It is this evening in fact ! — ” 

He had forgotten it. 

Marianne, too, was not free. She was going, she said, 
to Auteuil for that bill of exchange. Vaudrey did not 
therefore, regret the soiree. His going to Madame 
Gerson’s was now a matter of indifference to him. 

“ As for me, I am so happy, oh ! so happy ! ” said 
Adrienne, clapping her little hands like a child. 

In undressing, Vaudrey fortunately found this docu- 
ment which he had folded in four and left in his waist' 
coat pocket : 

“On the first of June next, I will pay to the order of Monsieur 
Adolphe Gochard of No. 9, Rue Albouy, the sum of One Hundred 
Thousand Francs, value received in cash. 

“ Sulpice Vaudrey, 

“ Rue de la Chaussee-d’Antin, 37.” 

He turned pale on reading it. If Adrienne had seen 
it ! — 

He burned the paper at a candle. 


PART SECOND 


353 

“ I am imprudent,” he said to himself. “ Poor 
Adrienne ! I should not like to cause her any distress.” 

She was overjoyed as she made the journey in the 
ministerial carriage from Place Beauvau to the Gersons’ 
mansion. At last she had a rapid, stolen moment in 
which she could recover the old-time joy of happy 
solitude, full of the exquisite agitation of former days. 

“ Do you recall the time when you took me away 
like this, on the evening of our marriage?” she 
whispered to him, as the carriage was driven off at a 
gallop. 

He took her hands and pressed them. 

“You still love me, don’t you, Sulpice? — You believe 
too, that I love you more than all the world ? ” 

“ Yes, I believe it ! ” 

“You would kill me if I deceived you? — I, ah, if you 
deceived me, I do not know what I should do. — Al- 
though I think that you are here, that I hold you, that I 
love you, you may still belong to another woman — ” 

“ Again ! you have already said that. Are you mad ? ” 
said Sulpice. “ See ! we have reached our destination.” 

Madame Gerson had brilliantly illuminated her house 
in Rue de Boulogne with lights, filled it with flowers, and 
spread carpets everywhere to receive the President of 
the Council. The house was too small to accommodate 
the guests, who were about to be stifled therein. She 
packed them into her dining-room. For the soiree 
which was to follow, she had sounded the roll-call of her 

23 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


354 

friends. She was bent on founding a new salon, on 
showing Madame Marsy that she was not alone to be the 
rival of Madame Evan. 

Madame Gerson was not on friendly terms with Sabine 
Marsy. People were ignorant as to the cause. Adrienne, 
who was not familiar with the history of such little broils, 
was very much surprised to learn of this fact. 

“She claims that we take away all her personnel said 
Madame Gerson. “ It is not my fault if people enjoy 
themselves at our house. I hope that you will find pleas- 
ure here, Monsieur le President.” 

Vaudrey bowed. “Madame Gerson could not doubt 
it.” 

The guests sat down to dinner. Madame Gerson 
beamed with joy beside the minister. Guy de Lissac, 
Warcolier, some senators and some deputies were of the 
dinner party. Monsieur and Madame Gerson never 
spoke of them by their names but : Monsieur le Senateur , 
Monsieur le Depute / They lubricated their throats 
with these titles, just as bourgeois who come in contact 
with highnesses swell out in addressing a prince as Mon- 
seigneur, absolutely as if they were addressing themselves. 

Sulpice felt in the midst of this circle in which every- 
thing was sacrificed to chic , as he invariably did, the 
painful sensation of a man who is continually on show. 
He never dined out without running against the same 
menu, the same fanfare, and the same conversation. 

Monsieur Gerson endeavored to draw the President of 


PART SECOND 


355 

the Council into political conversation. He wished to 
know Vaudrey’s opinion as to the one-man ballet. Sul- 
pice smiled. 

“ Thanks ! ” he said. “ We have just been dealing 
with that. I prefer truffles, they are more savory.” 

Through the flowers, Adrienne could see her husband 
who was seated opposite to her beside Madame Gerson. 
She conversed but little with Guy de Lissac, who was 
sitting on her right, although the formalities of the occa- 
sion would have suggested that Monsieur le Senator 
Cr^peau and Monsieur de Prangins, the deputy, should 
have been so placed. Madame Gerson, however, had 
remarked with a smile, that Madame Vaudrey would not 
feel annoyed at having Monsieur de Lissac for her neigh- 
bor. “I have often met Monsieur de Lissac at the 
ministry; he is received noticeably well there.” 

Not knowing any one among the guests, Adrienne 
was, in fact, charmed to have Guy next to her. He 
was decidedly pleasing to her with his sallies, his skep- 
ticism which, as she thought, covered more belief than 
he wished to disclose. For a long time, he had felt 
himself entirely captivated by her cheerful modesty and 
the grace of her exquisite purity. She was so vastly 
different from all the other women whom he had known. 
How the devil could Vaudrey bring himself to neglect 
so perfect a creature, who was more attractive in her 
fascinating virtue than all the damsels to be met with in 
society, among the demi-monde, or those of a still lower 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


356 

grade ? For Vaudrey remained indifferent to Adrienne 
and this was a further and manifest blow. A special- 
ist in matters of observation like Guy was not to be 
deceived therein. Madame Vaudrey had not yet com- 
plained, but she was already suffering. Was it merely 
politics, or was it some woman who was taking her 
husband from Adrienne ? Guy did not know, but he 
would know. The pretty Madame Vaudrey interested 
him. 

“ If that idiot Sulpice were not my friend, I would 
make love to her. Besides,” he said to himself, as he 
looked at Adrienne’s lovely, limpid eyes, “ I should 
fail ; there are some lakes whose tranquillity cannot be 
disturbed.” 

Adrienne, pleased to have him beside her, enquired 
of him the names of the guests. On the left of Ma- 
dame Gerson sat a little, broad-backed man, with black 
hair pasted over his temples, long leg-of-mutton whis- 
kers decorating his bright-colored cheeks, and a keen 
eye : he was Monsieur Jouvenet, formerly an advocate ; 
to-day Prefect of Police. 

Senator Cr£peau sat further away. He was a fat man- 
ufacturer, who talked about alimentary products and 
politics. In the Analytical Table of the Accounts of the 
Siiti?igs of the Senate, his name shone brilliantly, with the 
following as his record : “ Crepeau, of L’Ain, Life Senator 
- — Apologizes for his absence — 8 January—. Apologizes 
for his absence — 20 February — . Member of a commis- 


PART SECOND 


357 

sion — * Journal Officiel ’ p. 1441. Apologizes for not being 
able to take part in the labors of the commission — 
4 March — . Apologizes for his absence — 20 March — . 
Asks for leave of absence — 5 April — Such were his 
services during the ordinary work of that year. Monsieur 
Crepeau — of L’Ain — had earned the right to take a rest. 

“ He eats very heartily,” said Lissac. “ His appetite 
is better than his eloquence.” 

Next to Crepeau was another legislator, Henri de 
Prangins, a publicist, an old, wrinkled, stooping, dissat- 
isfied grumbler. 

“ Ah ! that is Monsieur de Prangins,” said Adrienne, 
“ I have heard much about him.” 

“ He is a typical character,” Lissac said, with a smile. 
“ You know Granet, the gentleman who will become a 
minister; well, Prangins is the gentleman who would be 
a minister, but who never will be ! Moreover, he is five 
hundred times more remarkable than a hundred others 
who have been in office ten times, for what reason can- 
not be said.” 

For nearly half a century Prangins, the old political 
wheel-horse, had plotted and jockeyed in politics, set up 
and overthrown ministries, piled up review articles on 
newspaper articles, contradiction on contradiction, page 
on page, spoiled cartloads of paper in his vocation of 
daily or fortnightly howler, and withal he was applauded, 
rich and popular, famous and surrounded by flatterers, 
knife-and-fork companions, without friends but not want- 


358 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

ing clients, as he had made and spoiled reputations, 
ministers, governments, and although he well knew the 
vanity and nothingness of power, he aspired to secure 
that vain booty, oft alleging with bitter enviousness of 
authority and impatient of tyranny, that to enjoy popu- 
larity uninterruptedly was not worth a quarter of an hour 
of power, approaching with greedy eagerness the desired 
lot, yet seeing it inevitably, eternally, relentlessly escape 
and recede from him, plucked from his grasp as it were, 
like a shred of flesh from the jaw of a Molossian. And 
now, in his unquenchable lust of power, amid the monu- 
ments of combination and deception he had created, 
this man was weary, disgusted and irritated, — believ- 
ing himself vanquished and smothering the anger of 
defeat in the luxurious isolation of his wealth. He 
was neither officially influential nor liked. Feared he 
was, probably, and envied because of his good fortune, 
recognized, too, as a force , but only as acting in the 
whirlwind of his ideas and struggling in the emptiness of 
his dreams. After having immolated everything, youth, 
family, friendship, love, to this chimera : power, he found 
himself old, worn-out, broken by his combats, face to 
face with the folly of his hopes and the worthlessness of 
his will. Never had his nervous hand been able to grasp 
in its transition, the fragment of morocco of a portfolio 
and now that his parchment-like fingers were old and 
feeble, they would never cling to that shred of power ! 
And now this Prangins avenged himself for the contempt 


PART SECOND 


359 

or the injustice of his colleagues and the folly of circum- 
stances, by criticism, defiance, mockery, denial and by 
loudly expressing his opinion : 

“ The defect of every government is that it will try 
to play new airs on an old violin ! Your violin is cracked, 
Monsieur Vaudrey ! I do not reproach you for that, 
you did not make it ! ” 

Vaudrey laughed at the sally, but Warcolier felt that 
he was choking. How could the minister allow his 
policy to be thus attacked at table ? Ah ! how Warcolier 
would have clinched the argument of this Prangins. 

Madame Gerson was delighted. The dinner was 
served sumptuously and went off without a hitch. The 
maitre d'hdtel directed the service admirably. The 
soiree that was to follow it would be magnificent. The 
journals would most certainly report it. Gerson had in- 
vited one reporter in spite of his dislike of journalists. 
Ah ! those gossip ers and foolish fellows, they never forgot 
to describe the toilettes worn by “ the pretty Madame 
Gerson” at first nights , at the £lys£e or at Charity 
Bazaars. Occasionally, her husband pretended to be 
angered by the successes of his wife : 

“ Those journalists ! Just imagine, those journalists ! 
They speak about my wife just as they would about an 
actress ! ‘ The lovely Madame Gerson wore a gown of 
crepe de Chine ! ’ The lovely Madame Gerson ! What 
has my wife’s beauty or her toilette to do with them?” 

In truth, however, he felt flattered. He was only 


360 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER. 

sincerely annoyed when people respected the devilish 
wall of private life, the cement of which he would have 
stripped off himself, in order to show his wife’s beauty. 
To be quoted in the paper, why ! that is chic. 

Adrienne felt a little stunned by the noise of the con- 
versation which increased in proportion as the dinner 
advanced. She was also very much astonished and not a 
little grieved when Madame Gerson abruptly spoke in a 
loud voice before all the guests concerning Madame 
Marsy, at whose house it was, in fact, that she made the 
acquaintance of Vaudrey. Madame Gerson showed 
her pretty teeth in a very charming manner as she tore 
her old friend Sabine to pieces, as it were. In a ten- 
derly indulgent tone which was the more terrible, she 
repeated the tales that were formerly current : the affect- 
ing death of Philippe Marsy, the painter of Charity, 
and a particular escapade in which Sabine was involved 
with £mile Cordier, one of the leaders of the intransi- 
geante school of painters. 

“What! you did not know that?” said the pretty 
Madame Gerson in astonishment. 

Adrienne knew nothing. She was delighted more- 
over to know nothing. She heard this former friend 
relate how Sabine had, at one time, exhibited at the 
Salon. Oh ! mere students’ daubs, horrid things ! Still- 
life subjects that might have passed for buried ones, and 
yet, perhaps, Cordier retouched them. 

“ I thought that Madame Gerson was on the best of 


PART SECOND 361 

terms with Madame Marsy,” whispered Adrienne to 
Lissac, who replied : 

“They have been on better ! They perhaps will be 
so again. That is of very little importance. Women 
revile each other and associate at the same time.” 

Adrienne decided that she would not listen. She 
knew Sabine Marsy only slightly ; she was not interested 
as a friend ; but this little execution, gracefully carried 
out here by a woman who recently did the honors at 
the Salon of Boulevard Malesherbes seemed to her as 
cowardly as treachery. This, then, was society ! And 
how right was her choice in preferring solitude ! 

Then, in order that she might not hear the slander 
that was greeted with applause by those very persons 
who but yesterday besieged Madame Marsy’s buffet, and 
who would run to-morrow to pay court to that woman, 
she conversed with Lissac. She frankly told him what 
she suffered at Place Beauvau. She spoke of Sulpice, as 
Sulpice was loved by her beyond all else in the world. 

“ Fancy ! I do not see him, hardly ever ! The other 
week he passed two days at Laon, where an exposition 
was held at which he was present.” 

“An exposition at Laon?” asked Lissac, astonished. 
“ What exposition? ” 

“ I do not know. I know nothing myself. Perhaps 
it is wrong of me not to keep myself informed of pass- 
ing events, but all that wearies me. I detest politics 
and journals — I am told quite enough about them. 


362 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

Politics ! that which takes my husband from me ! My 
uncle, Doctor Reboux, often said to me : ‘ Never marry 

a doctor ; he is only half a husband.’ Vaudrey is like 
a doctor. Always absent, with his everlasting night- 
sessions.” 

“Night-sessions?” asked Lissac. 

“Yes, at the Chamber — continually — ” 

Guy determined to betray nothing of his astonishment ; 
but he knew now as surely as if he had learned every- 
thing, why Sulpice neglected Adrienne. The fool ! 
some girl from the Op£ra ! some office-seeker who was 
skilfully entangling His Excellency ! That appertained 
to his functions then? He was exasperated at Vaudrey 
and alternately looked at him and at Adrienne. So 
perfect a woman ! Ravishing. What an exquisite pro- 
file, so delicate and with such a straight nose and a 
delightful mouth ! Was Vaudrey mad then ? 

The guests rose from the table, and, as usual, the men 
went into the smoking-room, leaving the salon half- 
empty. Madame Gerson profited thereby to continue 
distilling her little slanders about Sabine, which she did 
while laughing heartily. In the smoking-room the men 
chatted away beneath the cloud that rose from their 
londres. The clarion tones of Warcolier rung out 
above all the other voices. 

Guy, seated in a corner on a divan, was still thinking 
of Adrienne, of those night-sessions, of those expositions, 
of those agricultural competitions invented by Sulpice, 


PART SECOND 363 

and caught but snatches of the conversation, jests, and 
nonsensical stories which were made at the cost of the 
colleagues of the Chamber and political friends : 

“ You know how Badiche learned at the last election 
that he was not elected ? ” 

“No, how?” 

“ He returned to his house, anxious as to the result 
of the ballot. And he heard, what do you think? His 
children, a little boy and a little girl, who on receipt of 
the telegram that papa was waiting for and that mamma 
in her feverish expectation had opened, had already com- 
posed a song to the air of The Young Man Poisoned : 

Resultat tres negatif, 

Ballottage positif ! 

Badiche est hallo — 

Bate, 

Est ballotte ! 

Oui, Badiche est ballotte ; 

C’est papa qu’est ballotte ! 

Happy precocity ! genuine frightful gamins ! ” 

“Du Gavarni / ” 

“ Apropos, on what majority do you count, Monsieur 
le President?” 

“ One hundred and thirty-nine.” 

“ That is a large one.” 

“ I ! my dear fellow,” — it was old Prangins speaking 
to Senator Crdpeau, — “ I do not count myself as likely 


364 H1S EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

to be included in the next ministry, no ! I do not 
delude myself, but I shall be in the second — or rather in 
the third — no, in the fourth — yes, in the fourth ministry 
— Assuredly ! ” 

An asthmatic cough, the cough of an old man, inter- 
rupted his remarks. 

Guy heard Warcolier, as he held a small glass of 
kirsch in his hand, say with a laugh : 

“ 1 have a way of holding my electors in leash. Not 
only when I visit them do I address them as my friend , 
my brave , which flatters them, but from time to time, I 
write them autograph letters. They look upon that 
like ready money. Some of them, the good fellows, are 
flattered : 1 He has written to me, he is not proud ! * 
Others, the suspicious fellows, are reassured : ‘ Now — I 
have his signature, I have him ! ’ And there you are ! ” 

They laughed heartily. 

“How they laugh afterward," thought Lissac, “at 
the electors whose shoes they would blacken before- 
hand." 

“The course that I have followed is very simple,” 
said another. “ I desired to become sub-prefect so as 
to become a prefect and a prefect to become a deputy, 
and a deputy so as to reach a receiver-generalship, 
The salaries assured, why, there’s the crowning of a 
career.” 

“Why, that fellow plays the whole gamut," again 
thought Guy, “ but he is frank ! ” 


PART SECOND 


36s 

“ I read very little,” now replied Cr£peau to Warco- 
lier — “ I do not much care for pure literature — we 
politicians, we need substantial reading that will teach 
us to think.” 

“ I believe you ! — ” murmured this Parisian Guy, still 
smoking and listening. “ Go to school, my good 
man ! ” 

The conversation thus intermingled and confused, 
horrified and irritated this blase by its gravity and 
selfishness. He summed up an entire character in a 
single phrase and shook his head as he very shrewdly re- 
marked : “ Suppose Universal Suffrage were listening? ” 

Lissac did not take any part in these conversations. 
It was his delight to observe. He drew amusement 
from all these wearisome commonplaces, according to 
his custom as a curious spectator. 

He was about, however, to rise and approach Vau- 
drey, who was instinctively coming toward him, when 
the Prefect of Police, Monsieur Jouvenet, without no- 
ticing it, placed himself between the minister and his 
friend. 

Jouvenet spoke in a low tone to Vaudrey, smiling at 
the same time very peculiarly and passing his fingers 
through his whiskers. Whatever discretion the prefect 
employed, Guy was near enough to him to hear the 
name of Marianne Kayser, which surprised him. 

Marianne ! what question of Marianne could there be 
between these two men? 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


366 

Lissac observed that Vaudrey suddenly became very 
pale. 

He drew still nearer, pretending to finish a cup of 
coffee while standing. Then he heard these words very 
distinctly : 

“ A reporter saw you leave her house the other even- 
ing ! ” 

Guy moved away very quickly. He felt a sort of 
sudden bewilderment, as if the few words spoken by 
the Prefect of Police were the natural result of his 
conversation with Adrienne, an immediate response 
thereto. 

“It would be astonishing if Marianne — ” thought 
Lissac. 

Besides, he would know soon. He would merely 
question Vaudrey. 

As soon as Jouvenet, always polite, grave and impas- 
sive, had left “Monsieur le Ministre ” in a state of 
visible nervousness, almost of anxiety, he entered upon 
his plan. 

“You know Mademoiselle Kayser intimately then?” 
he asked Vaudrey, who, taken aback, looked at him for 
a moment without replying and endeavored to grasp 
Lissac’ s purpose. 

“Am I imprudent?” further asked Guy. 

“ No, but who has told you — ? ” 

“ Nothing, your Prefect of Police only spoke a little 
too loud. He seemed to me to understand.” 


PART SECOND 


367 


Vaudrey’s hand rapidly seized Lissac’s wrist. 

“ Hush ! be silent ! ” 

“Very well ! Good ! ” said Lissac to himself. “Poor 
little Adrienne.” 

“ I will tell you all about that later. Oh ! nothing is 
more simple ! It isn’t what you think ! ” 

“ I am sure of that ! ” answered Lissac, with a smile. 

In a mechanical way, and as if to evade his friend, 
Sulpice left the smoking-room for the salon, tritely ob- 
serving : 

“ We must rejoin the ladies — the cigar kills conversa- 
tion—” 

He felt uncomfortable. It was the first time that 
Jouvenet had informed him that there are agents for 
learning the movements of ministers. The Prefect of 
Police, in a chance conversation at the Op£ra with the 
editor-in-chief of a very Parisian journal, had suppressed 
a rumor which stated that a minister hailing from 
Grenoble set propriety at defiance in his visits to Rue 
Prony. It would have been as well to print Vaudrey’s 
name. 

Hitherto he had been able to enjoy his passion for 
Marianne without scandal and secretly. His mysterious 
intrigue was now known to the police, to everybody, to 
a reporter who had stumbled against him on leaving a 
supper-party at the house of a courtesan in the neigh- 
borhood. 

The minister was bitterly annoyed. The very flatter- 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


368 

ing applause that the women bestowed upon him when 
he returned to the salon could not dissipate his ill- 
humor. He tried to chat and respond to the affected 
remarks of Madame Gerson and to the smiles of the 
women; but he was embarrassed and nervous. Adri- 
enne thought he looked ill. 

Everything was spoken of in this light but pretentious, 
easy tone, the conversation of those second-rate salons 
where neither ideas nor men are made, where, on the 
contrary, they are accepted, ready-made and cn bloc. 
On every question, the picture in vogue, the favorite book, 
the man of the hour, they expressed themselves by the 
same stereotyped, expected word, borrowed from the 
ceaseless repetition of current polemics. Nothing was 
new. The conversation was as well worn as an old 
farthing. Adrienne was pained to see a man of Vau- 
drey’s intelligence compelled to listen to these truisms 
and wondered if he would- presently reproach her for 
having brought him into the suffocating void of this 
Parisian establishment where all was superficial, glitter- 
ing and chic. 

She was in a hurry to get away. She saw that Sul- 
pice was growing weary, and took advantage of the first 
opportunity to whisper to him : 

‘‘Would you like to go?” 

“Yes, let us go ! ” he said. 

He sought Lissac and repeated to him that he would 
have something to say to him, and Guy bowed to the 


PART SECOND 369 

Minister and Madame Vaudrey, who left too early to 
please the Gersons. 

Adrienne, out of heart and discouraged by common- 
place gossip and slander, was eager to be again with her 
husband, to tell him that nothing could compensate 
her for the deep joy of the tete-a-tete, their evenings 
passed together as of old — he remembered them well, — 
when he read to her from the works of much-loved 
poets. 

“ Poetry ! ” said Vaudrey. “ Will you be quiet ! The 
Gersons would find me as antiquated as Ramel. It is 
old-fashioned.” 

“ I am no longer surprised,” added the young wife, 
“ at being so little fashionable. Morally speaking, those 
hot-houses of platitudes stifle one. Never fear, Sulpice, 
I shall not be the one to ever again drag you into salons. 
Are you tired ? Are you w r eary ? ” 

“ No, I was thinking of something else,” replied 
Vaudrey, who really was thinking of Marianne. 

Madame Vaudrey had not left Madame Gerson’s salon 
before that pretty little Parisian whispered imprudently 
enough in the ear of a female friend : 

“ Our ministers’ wives are always from Carpentras, 
Pont-a-Mousson, or Moulins ; don’t you think so ? ” 

“And what would you have!” said Lissac, who on 
this evening heard everything that he ought not to hear, 
“ it is as good as being from the Moulin- Rouge ! ” 

Madame Gerson smiled, thought the expression charm- 


370 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

ing, very apt, very happy, but again reflected that Lissac 
was exceedingly considerate toward Adrienne and that 
Madame Vaudrey was a little too indulgent toward 
Monsieur de Lissac. 


v 

Since the moment when it had entered her mind that 
she might find something more than a lover in Monsieur 
de Rosas, Marianne had been sorely puzzled. She was 
playing a strong hand. Between the minister and the 
duke she must make a choice. 

She did not care seriously for Vaudrey. In fact she 
found that he was ridiculously unreserved. “ He is a 
simple fellow ! ” she said to Claire Dujarrier. But she 
had sufficient amour-propre to retain him, and she felt 
assured that Sulpice was weak enough to obey her in 
everything : such an individual was not to be disdained. 
As to Rosas, she felt a sentiment which certainly was 
not love, but rather a feeling of astonishment, a peculiar 
affection. Rosas held her in respect, and she was flat- 
tered by his timid bearing, as he had in his veins the 
blood of heroes. He spoke almost entirely of his love, 
which, however, he never proposed to her to test, and 
this platonic course, which in Vaudrey’s case she would 
have considered simple , appeared to her to be “good 
form ” in the great nobleman’s case. The duke raised 
her in her own eyes. 


PART SECOND 


371 

He had never repeated that word, doubtless spoken 
by him at random : marriage, and Marianne was too 
discreet and shrewd to appear to have specially noticed 
it. She did not even allude to it. She waited patiently. 
With the lapse of time, she thought, Rosas would be the 
more surely in her grasp. Meantime it was neces- 
sary to live and as she was bent on maintaining her 
household, she kept Vaudrey, whom she might need at 
any moment. 

Her part was to carry on these two intrigues simul- 
taneously, leading Rosas to believe that the minister was 
her friend only, nothing more, the patron of Uncle 
Kayser, and making Vaudrey think that since she had 
dismissed the duke he had become resigned and would 
“suppress his sighs.” She could have sworn, in all sin- 
cerity, that Jos£ was not her lover. 

To mislead Vaudrey was not a very difficult task. 
Sulpice was literally blinded by this love. — For a mo- 
ment, he had been aroused byjouvenet’s intimation that 
his secret was known to others. For a while he seemed 
to have kept himself away from Marianne ; but after 
taking new precautions, he returned trembling with 
ardent passion to Mademoiselle Vanda’s hotel, where 
his mistress’s kiss, a little languid, awaited him. 

Months passed thus, the entire summer, the vacation 
of the Chamber, the dull season in Paris. Adrienne 
set out for Dauphiny, where Vaudrey was to preside 
over the Conseil-G£n£ral, and she felt a childish delight 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


37 2 

on finding herself once more in the old house at 
Grenoble, where she had formerly been so happy ! 
Yet even beneath this Toof, within these walls, the mute 
witnesses of his virtuous love, especially when alone, 
Vaudrey thought of Marianne, he had but one idea, 
that of seeing her again, of clasping her in his arms, 
and he wrote her passionate letters each day, which 
she hardly glanced over and with a shrug of her shoul- 
ders burned as of no importance. 

In the depths of his province he grew weary of the 
continual bustle of fetes, receptions held in his honor, 
addresses delivered by him, ceremonies over which he 
had to preside, deputations received, statues inaugu- 
rated. Statues ! always statues ! In the lesser towns, 
at Allevard or Marestel, he was dragged from the mairie 
to the Grande Place , between rows of firemen, in noisy 
processions, whose accompanying brass instruments split 
his ears, under pink-striped tents, draped with tricolor flags, 
before interminable files of gymnastic societies, glee clubs, 
corporate bodies, associations, Friends of Peace, or 
Friends of War societies ! Then wandering harangues ; 
commonplace remarks, spun out; addresses, sprinkled 
with Latin by professors of rhetoric; declarations of 
political faith by eloquent municipal councillors, all de- 
lighted to grab at a minister when the opportunity 
offered. How many such harangues Vaudrey heard ! 
More than in the Chamber. More thickly they came, 
more compressed, more severe than in the Chamber. 


PART SECOND 


373 

What advice, political considerations and remonstrances 
winding up with demands for offices ! What cantatas 
that begged for subsidies ! Everywhere demands : de- 
mands for subsidies, demands for grants, demands for 
help, demands for decorations ! Nothing but harass, 
enervation, lassitude, deafening clamor. They wished 
to kill him with their shouts : Vive Vaudrey ! 

The Prefect and the Commandant General of the 
division were constantly on guard about Vaudrey, who 
was dragged about in torture between these two coat- 
embroidered officers. From the lips of the prefect, 
Vaudrey heard the same commonplace utterances : prog- 
ress, the future, the fusion of parties and interests, the 
greatness of the department, the cotton trade and the 
tanneries, the glory of the minister who — of the minister 
whom — of the glorious child of the country — of the eagle 
of Dauphiny. Vive Vaudrey! Vive Vaudrey! The 
general, at least, varied his effects. He grumbled and 
wrung his hands, and on the day of the inauguration 
of the statue of a certain Monsieur Valbonnans, a for- 
mer deputy and celebrated glove manufacturer, — he also 
was the glory of the country, — Vaudrey heard the sol- 
dier from morning till night, with a movement of his 
jaw that made his imperial jerk—/ love bronze — I love 
bronze — with a persistency that stupefied the minister. 

This was, perhaps, the only recollection of a cheerful 
nature that Vaudrey retained of his trips in Isere. This 
eternal murmuring of the general : I love bronze ! I love 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


374 

bronze ! had awakened him, and he gayly asked himself 
what devilish sort of appetite that soldier had who con- 
tinually repeated his phrase in a ravenous tone. Seated 
beside him on the platform, while the glee-club sung an 
elegy in honor of the late Monsieur Valbonnans, which 
was composed for the occasion by an amateur of the 
town : 

Monsieur Valbonnans’ praise let’s chant, yes, chant I 

His gloves the best, as all must grant, 

The best extant ! 

while the flourish of trumpets took up the refrain and the 
firemen unveiled, amid loud acclamations, the statue of 
Monsieur Valbonnans, which bore these words on the 
pedestal : To the Inventor , the Patriot \ the Merchant ; 
meanwhile the prefect still poured in Vaudrey’s left ear 
his inexhaustible observations : the glove trade, the glory 
of Isere ; the progress, the interest, the greatness of the 
department, the minister who — the minister whom — 
{Vive Vaudrey /) Sulpice still heard, even amid the 
acclamations, the mechanical rumbling of the general’s 
voice, repeating, reasserting, rehearsing : " I love bronze / 
I love bronze !’ ’ - j 

On the evening of the banquet, the minister at length 
obtained an explanation of this extraordinary affection. 
The general rose, grasping his glass as if he would shiver 
it, and while the farfait overflowed on to the plates, he 
cried in a hoarse voice, as if he were at the head of his 
division: 


PART SECOND 


375 

“ I love bronze — I love bronze — because it serves for 
the erection of statues and the casting of cannon. I 
love bronze because its voice wins battles, the artillery 
being to-day the superior branch, although the cavalry 
is the most chivalrous ! I love bronze because it is the 
image of the heart of the soldier, and I should like to 
see in our country an army of men of bronze who — 
whom — ” 

He became confused and muddled, and rolled his 
white eyes about in his purpled face and to close his obser- 
vations brandished his glass as if it had been his sword, 
and amid a frenzy of applause from the guests, he val- 
iantly howled : “ I love bronze ! I love bronze ! ” 

Vaudrey could scarcely prevent himself from laughing 
hysterically, in spite of his ministerial dignity, and when 
he returned to Grenoble, his carriage full of the flowers 
that they had showered on him, he could only answer to 
Adrienne, who asked him if he had spoken well, if it had 
been a fine affair, by throwing his bouquets on the floor 
and saying : 

“ I have laughed heartily, but I am crushed, stupe- 
fied ! What a headache ! ” 

And Sulpice wrote all that to Marianne, and innocent 
that he was, told her : “ Ah ! all those applauding voices 
are not worth a single word from you ! When shall I 
see you, Marianne, dear heart ? ” 

“At the latest possible date!” the dear heart 
said. 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


3 7 6 

She regarded the close of summer and the beginning 
of autumn with extreme vexation, for it would bring with 
it the parliamentary session and Vaudrey, and inflict on 
her the presence of her lover. 

Sulpice provided her liberally with all that her luxuri- 
ous appetites demanded, and it was for good reasons that 
she decided not to break with him, although for a long 
time she had sacrificed this man in her inclinations. 
“ Ah ! when I shall be able to bounce him ! ” she said, 
expressing herself like a courtesan. She could not, she 
would not accept anything from Rosas. On that side, 
the game was too fine to be compromised. She could 
with impunity accept the position of mistress of Vaudrey, 
but with Jos6 she must appear to preserve, as it were, an 
aureole of modesty, of virginal charms, that she did not 
possess. 

In fact, the Spaniard’s mind became singularly crystal- 
lized, and she turned this result to good account : in 
proportion as he associated himself with the real Mari- 
anne, he created a fictitious Marianne, ideal, kind, spiri- 
tuelle , perhaps ignorant, but subtile and corrupted in 
mind, who amused and disconcerted him at one and the 
same time. He had left the Continental Hotel, and 
rented a house on Avenue Montaigne, Champs-£lys£es, 
where he sometimes entertained Marianne as he might 
have done a princess. At such times she gossiped 
while smoking Turkish tobacco. Her Parisian grace, 
her champagne-like effervescent manner, seduced and 


























































% 


» • 

























PART SECOND 


377 

charmed this serious, pale traveller, whose very smile was 
tinged with melancholy. 

He completely adored this woman and no longer made 
an effort to resist. He entirely forgot that it was through 
Guy that he had known her. It seemed to him that he 
had himself discovered her, and besides, she had never 
loved Guy. No, certainly not. She was frank enough 
to acknowledge everything. Then she denied that Lis- 
sac ever — Then what ! If it should be true ? But no ! 
no ! Marianne denied it. He blindly believed in Mari- 
anne. 

All the conflicting, frantic arguments that men make 
when they are about to commit some foolish action were 
at war in Jose’s brain. The more so as he did not 
attempt to analyze his feelings. He passed, near this 
pretty woman whose finger-tips he hardly dared kiss, 
the most delicious summer of his life. Once, however, 
on going out with Marianne in the Champs-Eflys^es, he 
had met the old Dujarrier with the swollen eyelids and 
the yellow hair that he had known formerly. One of his 
friends, the Marquis Vergano, had committed suicide at 
twenty for this woman who was old enough to be his 
mother. The Dujarrier had stopped and greeted Mari- 
anne, but as she remarked herself, a thousand bows and 
scrapes were thrown away, for Rosas had hardly noticed 
her with a glacial look. 

“Why do you return that woman’s salutation? ” he at 
once asked Marianne. 


378 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

“I need her. She has done me services.” 

“ That is surprising ! I thought her incapable of 
doing anything but harm.” 

He did not dream of Mademoiselle Kayser’s coming 
in contact with courtesans. In the tiny, virtuous room 
in Rue Cuvier, Rosas thought that Marianne was in her 
true surroundings. She would frequently sit at the 
piano — one of the few pieces of furniture contained in 
this apartment, — and play for Rosas Oriental melodies 
that would transport him far away in thought, to the 
open desert, by the slow lulling of David’s Caravane , 
then abruptly change to that familiar air, that rondeau 
of the Vari£t£s that he hummed yonder, on his dunghill, 
forsaken — 

“ Voyez-vous, la-bas, 

Cette maison blanche — ’• 

“ I love that music-hall air ! ” she said. 

He now no longer meditated resuming travel, or quit- 
ting Paris. Mademoiselle Kayser’s hold on him grew 
more certain every day. The suspicion of odd mystery 
that enveloped this girl intensified his passion. 

He sometimes asked her what her uncle was doing. 

“He? Why, he has obtained, thanks to Monsieur 
Vaudrey, the decoration of a hydropathic establishment, 
Les Thermes des Batignolles. He has commenced the 
cartoon for a fresco : Massage Moralizing the People , 
We shall see that in his studio.” 


PART SECOND 


379 

“.Do you know,” Marianne continued, “what I would 
like to see? ” 

“What, then?” 

“Spain, your own country. Where were you born, 
Rosas?” 

“At Toledo. I own the family chateau there.” 

“With portraits and armor?” 

“ Yes, with portraits and armor.” 

“ Well, I would like to go to Toledo, to see that cha- 
teau. It must be magnificent.” 

“ It is gloomy, simply gloomy. A fortress on a rock. 
Gray stone, a red rock, scorched by the sun. Huge 
halls half Moorish in style. Walls as thick as those of a 
prison. Steel knights, standing with lance in hand as in 
Eviradnus ! Old portraits of stern ancestors cramped 
in their doublets, or Duchesses de Rosas, with pale 
faces, sad countenances, buried in their collars whose 
guipures have been limned by Velasquez or Claude 
Coello. Immense cold rooms where the visitors’ foot- 
falls echo as over empty tombs. A splendor that savors 
of the vault. You would die of ennui at the end of two 
hours and of cold at the end of eight days.” 

“ Die of cold in Spain? ” 

“There is a cold of the soul,” the duke replied with 
a significant smile. “ That I have travelled so much, is 
probably due to my desire to escape from that place ! 
But you at Toledo, at Fuentecarral, — that is the name 
of my castle, — a Parisian like you ! It would be cruel. 


380 his excellency the minister 

As well shut up a humming-bird in a bear-pit. No ! 
thank God, I have other nooks in Spain that will shelter 
us, my dear sparrow of the boulevards ! Under the 
Andalusian jasmines, beneath the oleanders of Cordova 
or Seville, under the fountains whose basins are deco- 
rated with azulejos, and in which sultanas bathe, my 
jasmins could never sufficiently exhale their perfume, 
my fountains could never murmur harmoniously enough 
to furnish you a joyous welcome — when you go — if you 
go — But Toledo ! My terrible castle Fuentecarral ! 
It is in vain that I am a romantic impenitent, I would 
not take you there for anything in the world. It would 
be as if ice fell on your shoulders. Fuentecarral? 
Ugh ! — that smacks of death.” 

While he spoke, Marianne looked at him with kindling 
eyes and in thought roamed through those sweet-scented 
gardens, and she craved to see herself in that tomblike 
fortress Fuentecarral, passing in front of the pale female 
ancestors of Rosas, aghast at the froufrou of the 
Parisian woman. 

Jos£ thought Marianne’s burning glance was an ex- 
pression of her love. Ah ! how completely the last six 
months in Paris had riveted him to this woman, who was 
the mistress of another ! One day, — Vaudrey had just 
left Marianne at the ivnd-point of the Champs-Elys£es, — 
the duke seeing her enter his house, said abruptly to 
her : 

“ I was about to write you, Marianne.” 


PART SECOND 


38 1 


“ Why, my dear duke ? ” 

“To ask an appointment.” 

“You are always welcome, my friend, at our little 
retreat.” 

“ He made her sit down, seized both her hands, and 
looked at her earnestly as he said : 

“ Swear to me that you have never been Lissac’s 
mistress ! ” 

She did not even quiver, but was as calm as if she had 
long awaited this question. 

She boldly met Jose’s glance and said : 

“ Does one ask such a question of the woman one 
loves ? ” 

“ Suppose that I ask this question of the Duchesse de 
Rosas ! ” said the Spaniard, with quivering lip. 

She became as pale as he. 

“ I do not understand — ” she said. 

The duke remained silent for a moment; then his 
entire soul passed into his voice : 

“ I have no family, Marianne. I am entirely my own 
master, and I love you. If you swear to me that you 
have not been Guy’s mistress — ” 

“ Nobody has the right to say that he has even touched 
my lips,” replied Marianne firmly. “Only one man, he 
who took me, an innocent girl, and left me heart-broken, 
disgusted, believing I should never again love, before I 
met you. He is dead.” 

“I know,” said Rosas, “you confided that to me for- 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


3 82 

merly — a widow save in name, I offer you, yes, I ! my 
name, my love, my whole life, will you take them ? ” 

“ Eh ! you know perfectly well that I love you ! ” she 
exclaimed, as she gave him, frantically, the burning and 
penetrating kiss that had never left his lips since the 
soiree at Sabine’s. 

“Then, no one — no one ? ” Jos£ repeated. 

“ No one ! ” 

“ On honor ? ” 

“ On honor ! ” 

“ Oh ! how I love you ! ” he said, distractedly, all his 
passion shattering his* coldness of manner, as the sun 
melts the snow. “If you but knew how jealous and 
crazed I am about you ! — I desire you, I adore you, 
and I condemn myself to remain glacial before you; 
beneath your glance that fires my blood — I love you, and 
the recollection of Guy hindered me from telling you 
that all that is mine belongs to you — . I am a ferocious 
creature, you know, capable of mad outbursts, senseless 
anger, and unreasoning flight — Yes, I have wished to 
escape from you again. Well ! no, I remain with you ; 
I love you, I love you ! — You shall be my wife, do you 
hear ? My wife ! — Ah ! what a moment of bliss ! I 
have loved you for years ! Have you not seen it, 
Marianne ? ” 

“ I have seen it and I loved you ! I also have kept 
silence ! I saw plainly that you believed that I had given 
myself to another — No, no, I am yours, nothing but 


PART SECOND 383 

yours ! All my love, all myself, take it ; I have kept it 
for you ; for I hate the past, more than that, I do not 
know that it exists — It is despised, obliterated, it is 
nothing ! But you, ah ! you, you are my life ! ” 

She left Josd’s, her youth renewed, haughty, intoxi- 
cated with delight. She walked along alone, in the 
paths of the Champs-£lys£es, the rusty leaves falling in 
showers at the breath of the already cold wind, her heels 
ringing on the damp asphalt. She marched straight 
ahead, her thoughts afire from her intoxicating emotions. 
It seemed that Paris belonged to her. 

That evening, she was to go to the theatre. It was 
arranged that Vaudrey should wait for her at the en- 
trance with a hired carriage and take her to Rue Prony. 
She wrote to him that she could not leave the house. 
A slight headache. Uncle Kayser undertook to have 
the letter taken by a commissionaire. 

“ Unless you would rather have me go to the 
ministry ! ” 

“ Are you mad ? ” Marianne said. 

“That is true, it would be immoral.” 

She wished to have the evening to herself, quite alone, 
so that she could let her dreams take flight. 

Dreams ? Nonsense ! On the contrary, it was a 
dazzling reality : a fortune, a title, a positive escape 
from want and the mire. What a revenge ! 

“It is enough to drive one mad ! ” 

Sudden fears seized her; the terror of the too sue- 


384 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER. 

cessful gambler. What if everything crumbled like a 
house of cards ! She wished that she were several 
weeks older. 

“ Time passes so quickly, and yet one has a desire to 
spur it on.” 

Now in the solitude of her house she felt weary. 
She could neither read nor think, and became feverish. 
She regretted that she had written to Vaudrey. She 
wished to go to the theatre. A new operetta would be 
a diversion, and why should she not go ? She had 
the ticket for her box. She could at once inform Vau- 
drey that her headache had vanished. 

“And then he bores me ! — Especially now.” 

Matters, however, must not be abruptly changed. 
Suppose Rosas should take a sudden fancy to fly off 
again ! Besides, she had mutual interests with the 
minister, there was an account to be settled. 

“ The Gochard paper ? — Bah ! he will pay it. More- 
ever, I am not involved in that.” 

Suddenly she thought that she would act foolishly if 
she did not go where she pleased. Sulpice might think 
what he pleased. She got her maid to dress her hair. 

“Madame is going to the theatre? ” 

“ Yes, Justine. To the Renaissance ! ” 

She was greatly amused at the theatre, and was 
radiant with pleasure. She was the object of many 
glances, and felt delighted at being alone. One of the 
characters in the operetta was a duchess whose adven- 


PART SECOND 385 

tures afforded the audience much diversion. She 
abandoned herself to her dreams, her thoughts wander- 
ing far from the theatre, the footlights and the actors, 
to the distant orange groves yonder. 

During an entr’acte some one knocked at the door of 
her box. She turned around in surprise. It was Jou- 
venet, the Prefect of Police, who came to greet her in a 
very gallant fashion. The prefect — he had gained at 
the palais in former days, the title of L Avocat 
Pathelin , — with insinuating and wheedling manners, 
hastened to pay his meed of respect to Marianne when he 
met her. There was no necessity to stand on ceremony 
with him. He knew all her secrets. Such a man, more- 
ever, must be treated prudently, as he can make himself 
useful. Never had Jouvenet spoken to her of Vaudrey, 
he was too politic in matters of state. But as a man who 
knows that everything in this world is transient, he skil- 
fully maintained his place in the ranks, considering that 
a Prefect of Police might not be at all unlikely to succeed 
a President of the Council. 

Marianne permitted him to talk, accepted all his gal- 
lantries as she might have done bonbons, and with a 
woman’s wit kept him at a distance without wounding 
his vanity. 

Jouvenet with the simple purpose of showing her that 
he was well-informed, asked her, stroking his whiskers as 
he did so, if she often saw the Due de Rosas. What a 
charming man the duke was ! And while the young 

25 


3 8 6 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

woman watched him as if to guess his thoughts, he 
smiled at her. 

The prefect, not wishing to appear too persistent, 
changed the conversation with the remark : 

“ Ah ! there is one of our old friends ogling you ! ” 

“ An old friend? ” 

It was in fact Guy de Lissac who was standing at the 
balcony training his glass upon the box. 

Marianne had only very occasionally met Lissac, but 
for some time she had suspected him of being secretly 
hostile to her. Guy bore her a grudge for having taken 
Sulpice away from Adrienne. He pitied Madame Vau- 
drey and perhaps his deep compassion was blended with 
another sentiment in which tenderness had taken the 
place of a more modified interest. He was irritated 
against the blind husband because he could not see the 
perfect charms of that delicate soul, so timid and at 
the same time so devoted. Although he had not felt 
justified in showing his annoyance to Vaudrey, he had 
manifested his dislike to Marianne under cover of his 
jesting manner, and she had been exceedingly touched 
thereby. Wherefore did this man who could not under- 
stand her, interfere, and why did he add to the injuries 
of old the mockery of to-day? 

“ After all, perhaps it is through jealousy,” she thought. 
“ The dolt!” 

Guy did not cease to look at her through his glass. 

“ Does that displease you? ” Jouvenet asked. 


PART SECOND 


387 


“ Not at all. What is that to me?” 

“ This Lissac was much in love with you ! ” 

“ Ah ! Monsieur le Pr£fet ! ” Marianne observed 
quickly. “ I know that your office inclines you to be 
somewhat inquisitive, but it would be polite of you to 
allow my past to sleep in your dockets. They are 
famous shrouds ! ” 

Jouvenet bit his lips and in turn brought his glass to 
bear on Lissac. 

“See,” he said, “he makes a great deal of the cross 
of the Christ of Portugal ! It is in very bad taste ! I 
thought he was a shrewder man ! ” 

“The order of Christ is then in bad odor?” 

“ On the contrary ; but as it is like the Legion of 
Honor in color, he is prohibited from wearing it in 
his buttonhole without displaying the small gold cross— 
And I see only the red there — ” 

“I beg your pardon, Monsieur lePrefet, there is one.” 
“ Oh ! my glass is a wretched one !— But even so, I 
do not believe Monsieur de Lissac is authorized by the 
Grand Chancellor to wear his decoration. That is easily 
ascertained ! — I will nevertheless not fail to insert in the 
Officiel to-morrow a note relative to the illegality of 
wearing certain foreign decorations — ” 

“ Is this note directed against Lissac? ” 

“ Not at all. But he reminds me of a step that I 
have wished to take for a long time : the enforcement 
of the law.” 


388 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

The entr’acte was over. Jouvenet withdrew, repeat- 
ing all kinds of remarks with double meanings that veiled 
declarations of love ; that ' if the occasion arose, he 
would place himself entirely at her service, and that 
some day she might be very glad to meet him — 

“ I thank you, Monsieur le Pr£fet, and < I will avail 
myself of your kindness,” replied Marianne, out of 
courtesy. 

Something suggested to her that Guy would pay his 
respects to her during the next entr’acte, were it only to 
jest about Jouvenet’s visit, seeing that he was regarded 
as a compromising acquaintance, and she was not wrong. 

Behind his monocle, his keen, mocking glance seemed 
like a taunting smile. 

“Well,” he said, in a somewhat abrupt tone, as he 
sat near Marianne, “ I congratulate you, my dear friend.” 

“Why? ” she answered with surprise. 

“ On the great news, parbleu / Your marriage.” 

She turned slightly pale. 

“ How do you know ? — ’ ’ 

“I have seen the duke. He called on me.” 

“On you? What for?” 

“Can’t you make , a little guess-r-a yery little 
guess — ” . ; 

“To ask you if I had been your mistress? Lissac, you 
are very silly.” 

“ Yes, my dear Marianne, prepare yourself somewhat 
for the position of a duchess. A gentleman, to whom 


PART SECOND 389 

you have sworn that I have never been your lover, could 
not doubt your word ! — Jos£ asked me nothing. He 
simply stated his determination to see what I would say, 
or gather from my looks what I thought of it.” 

“ And you said? ” 

“What I had to say to him : I congratulated him ! ” 

Marianne raised her gray eyes to Lissac's face. 

“Congratulate?” she said slowly. 

“The woman he marries is pretty enough, I think? ” 

“ Ah ! my dear, a truce to insolent trifles ! — what is 
it that has possessed you for some time past? ” 

“ Nothing, but something has possessed you — or some 
one.” 

“ Rosas? ” 

“ No, Vaudrey ! ” 

“ I will restore him to you. Oh ! oh ! you are sur- 
prisingly interested in Vaudrey. Vaudrey or his wife? ” 
she remarked. 

She smiled with her wicked expression. 

“ Duchess,” said Lissac, “ accustom yourself to respect 
virtuous women ! ” 

“ Is it to talk of such pleasant trifles that you have 
gained access to my box? ” 

“ No, it is to ask you for some special information.” 

“What?” 

“ Is it true, is it really true that you are about to wed 
Rosas?” he asked in an almost cordial tone. 

“Why not? ” she replied, as she raised her head. 


39 ° 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“Because — I am going to be frank — I have always 
regarded you as an absolutely straightforward woman, a 
woman of honor — You once claimed so to be. Mad, fan- 
tastic, you often are ; charming, always ; but dishonest, 
never. To take Rosas’s love, even his fortune, would be 
natural enough, but to take his name would be a very 
questionable act and a skilful one, but lacking in frank- 
ness.” 

“ That is to say that I may devour him like a courtesan, 
but not marry him as a — ” 

“ As a young girl, no, you cannot do that. And you 
put me — I am bound to tell you so and I take advantage 
of the intermission to do so — in a delicate position. If 
I declared the truth to Rosas, I act toward you as a 
rascal. If I keep silent to my friend, my true friend, I 
act almost like a knave.” 

“ Did Rosas ask you to speak to me? ”' 

“ No, but there is a voice within me that pricks me to 
speech and tells me that if I allow you to marry the 
duke, I am committing myself to a questionable affair — 
Do you know what he asked me? — To be his witness.” 

If Marianne had been in a laughing mood, she would 
have laughed heartily. 

“It is absurd,” she said. “You did not consent? ” 

“Yes, indeed, I have consented. Because I really 
hoped that you would relieve me from such an undesirable 
duty, a little too questionable.” 

“You would like? — What would you like? ” 


PART SECOND 


39 1 

“ I wish — no, I would have you not marry Monsieur 
de Rosas.” 

Marianne shrugged her shoulders. 

She clearly felt the threat conveyed in Lissac’s words, 
but she desired to show from the first that she disdained 
them. What right, after all, had this casual acquaint- 
ance to mix himself up in her life affairs ? Because, one 
day, she had been charitable enough to give him her 
youth and her body ! The duty of friendship ! The 
rights of friendship ! To protect Vaudrey ! To de- 
fend Rosas ! Words, tiresome words ! 

“ And what if I wish to marry him, myself ? — Would 
you prevent it ? ” 

“ Yes, if I could ! ” he said firmly. “ It is time that 
to the freemasonry of women we should oppose the free- 
masonry of men.” 

“You are cruelly cowardly enough when you are 
alone, what would you be then when you are together? ” 
said Marianne, with a malignant expression. “ In fact,” 
said she, after a moment’s pause, “ what would you 
have ? What ? Decide ! — Will you send my letters to 
the duke ? ” 

“That is one way,” said Lissac, calmly. “It is a 
woman’ s way, that ! ” 

“ You have my letters still ? ” 

“ Preciously preserved.” 

He had not contemplated such a threat, but she 
quickly scented a danger therein. 


39 2 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ Suppose I should ask the return of those letters, per- 
haps you would restore them to me ? ” 

“ Probably,” he said. 

“ Suppose I asked you to bring them to me, you 
know, in that little out of the way room of which I spoke 
to you one day ? ” 

She had leaned gently toward Lissac and her elbows 
grazed the knees of her former lover. 

“ I would wear, that day, one of those otter-trimmed 
toques that you have not forgotten.” 

She saw that he trembled, as if he were moved by some 
unsatisfied desire for her. She felt reassured. 

“ Nonsense ! ” she said with a smiling face. “ You 
are not so bad as you pretend to be.” ' 

The manager tapped the customary three blows be- 
hind the curtain, and the orchestra began the prelude to 
the third act. 

“ Adieu for a brief period, my enemy ! ” said Marianne, 
extending her hand. 

He hesitated to take that hand. At length, taking it 
in his own, he said : 

“ Leave me Rosas ! ” 

“ Fie ! jealous one ! Don’t I leave Vaudrey to 
you ? » 

She laughed, while Lissac went away dissatisfied. 

“ I will have my letters, at all risks,” thought Marianne 
when he had disappeared. “ It is more prudent.” 

That night she slept badly, and the following morning 


PART SECOND 393 

rose in a very ill-humor. Her face expressed fatigue, 
her eyes were encircled with dark rings and burned 
feverishly, but withal, her beauty was heightened. All 
the morning she debated as to the course she should 
take, and finally decided to write to Guy, when Sulpice 
Vaudrey arrived, and beaming with delight, informed 
Marianne that he had the entire day to spend with her. 

“I learned through Jouvenet this morning that you 
were able to go to the theatre. Naughty one, to steal an 
evening from me. But I have all to-day, at least.” 

And he sat down in the salon like a man spreading 
himself out in his own house. Marianne was meditating 
some scheme to get rid of him when the chamber-maid 
entered, presenting a note on a tray. 

“ What is that? ” 

“A messenger, madame, has brought this letter.” 

Marianne read the paper hurriedly. 

Vaudrey observed that she blushed slightly. 

“ Is the messenger still there, Justine ? ” 

“ No, madame, he is gone. He said that there was 
no reply.” 

Marianne quickly tore in small pieces the note she had 
just read. 

“ Some annoyance?” asked Vaudrey. 

“Yes, exactly.” 

“ May I know? ” 

“ No, it does not interest you. A family affair.” 

“Ah ! your uncle?” asked Vaudrey, smiling. 


394 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ My uncle, yes ! ” 

“ He has asked that he be permitted to exhibit at 
the Trocadero the cartoons that he has finished : The 
Artis fs Mission , Hydropathy the Civilizer , I don’t know 
what in fact, a series of symbolical compositions — ” 

“ With the mirliton device underneath? — Yes, I know,” 
said Marianne. 

She snapped her fingers in her impatience. 

The letter that she had torn up had been written by 
Rosas, and received by Uncle Kayser at his studio, 
whence he had forwarded it to his niece. The duke in- 
formed Marianne that he would wait for her at five o’clock 
at Avenue Montaigne. He had something to say to her. 
He had passed the entire night reflecting and dreaming. 
She remembered her own wild dreams. Had Rosas 
then caught her thought floating like an atom on the 
night wind ? 

At five o’clock ! She would be punctual. But how 
escape Vaudrey? She could not now feign sickness 
since she had received him ! Moreover, he would instal 
himself near her and bombard her with his attentions. 
Was there any possible pretext, any way of getting out 
now? Her lover had the devoted, radiant look of a 
loved man who relied on enjoying a long interview 
with his mistress. He looked at her with a tender 
glance. 

“ The fool — The sticker ! ” thought Marianne. “ He 
will not leave ! ” 


PART SECOND 


395 

The best course was to go out. She would lose him 
on the way. 

“ What time have you, my dear minister ? ” 

“ One o’clock ! ” 

“ Then I have time ! ” she said. 

Vaudrey seemed surprised. Marianne unceremoniously 
informed him, in fact, that she had some calls to make, 
to secure some purchases. 

“ How disagreeable ! ” 

“Yes, for me ! ” 

“ I beg your pardon,” said Sulpice, correcting him- 
self. 

She sent for a coup6 and damp and keen as the 
weather was, she substituted for the glorious day of 
snug, intimate joy that Vaudrey had promised himself, 
a succession of weary hours passed in the draught caused 
by badly-fitting windows, while making a series of trips 
hither and thither, Marianne meantime cudgelling her 
brains to find a way to leave her lover on the way, or at 
least to notify Rosas. 

But above all to notify Lissac ! It was Lissac whom 
she was determined to see. Yes, absolutely, and at 
oiice. The more she considered the matter, the more 
dangerous it appeared to her. 

Sulpice had not given her a moment of freedom at 
her house, in which to write a few lines. He might have 
questioned her and that would be imprudent. 

“ I wish, however, to tell Guy to expect me ! — Where ? 


396 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

Rue Cuvier? He would not go there ! — No, at his 
house ! ” 

On the way she found the means. 

Vaudrey evidently was at liberty for the day and, 
master of his time, he would not leave her. This he 
repeated at every turn of the wheel. She ordered the 
driver to take her to The Louvre. 

“ I have purchases to make ! ” 

Sulpice could not accompany her, so he waited for 
her at the entrance on Place du Palais-Royal, nestled in 
a corner of the carriage, the blinds of which were lowered 
in order that he might not be seen. He felt very cold. 

Marianne slowly crossed between the stalls on the 
ground floor, hardly looking at the counters bearing the 
Japanese goods, the gloves and the artificial flowers. She 
ascended a winding iron stairway draped with tapestries, 
her tiny feet sinking into the moquette that covered the 
steps, and entered a noiseless salon where men and 
women were silently sitting before three tables, writing 
or reading, just as in the drawing-room of a hotel. At 
a large round table, old ladies and young girls sat look- 
ing at the pictures in Illustration , the caricatures in the 
Journal Amusant \ and the sketches in La Vie Parisienne. 
Others, at the second table, were reading the daily 
papers, some of which were rolled about their holders 
like a flag around its staff, or the Revue des Deux 
Mo tides. Further on, at a red-covered table furnished 
with leather-bound blotters and round, glass inkstands in 


PART SECOND 


397 

which the ink danced with a purple reflection, people 
were writing, seated on chairs covered in worn, garnet- 
colored velvet, with mahogany frames. This gloomy 
apartment was brightened by broad -leaved green plants, 
and was lighted from the roof by means of a flat sky- 
light. 

Marianne walked direct to the table on which the 
paper was symmetrically arranged in a stationery rack, and 
quickly seating herself, she^ laid iier muff down, half- 
raised her little veil, and beat a tattoo with her tiny hand 
on the little black leather blotter before her, then taking 
off her gloves, she took at random some sheets of paper 
and some envelopes bearing the address of the establish- 
ment on the corners. As she looked around for a pen, 
Marianne could not refrain from smiling, she thought of 
that poor Sulpice down there, waiting in the carriage and 
probably shivering in the draughts issuing from the dis- 
jointed doors. And he a minister ! 

“ Such is adultery in Paris ! ” she said to herself, 
happy to make him suffer. 

She did not hurry. She was amused by her surround- 
ings. A uniformed man promenaded the salon, watch- 
ing the stationery in the cases and replacing it as it was 
used. If required, he sold stamps to any one present. 
A letter-box was attached near the tall chimney, bearing 
the hours of collection. 

Beside Marianne, elbow to elbow, and before her, were 
principally women, some writing with feverish haste, 


398 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

others hesitatingly, and amongst them were two girls 
opposite her, who as they finished their letters chuckled 
in a low tone and passed them one to the other, say- 
to each other, as they chewed their plaid penholders : 

“ It is somewhat cold, eh ! He will say : Eh, well \ 
it is true then ! ” 

The two pretty, cheerful girls before her were doubt- 
less breaking in this way some liaison, amusing them- 
selves by sending an unexpected blow to some poor 
fellow, and enjoying themselves by spoiling paper ; the 
one writing, the other reading over her companion’s 
shoulder and giving vent to merry laughter under her 
Hungarian toque, a huge Quaker-collar almost covering 
her shoulders and her little jacket with its large steel 
buttons. 

This feminine head-gear made Marianne think of 
Guy. Her eyes, catlike in expression, gleamed mali- 
ciously. 

She took some paper and essayed to frame some 
tempting, tender phrases, something nebulous and excit- 
ing, but she could not. 

“ What I would like to write him is that he is a wretch 
and that I hate him ! ” she thought. 

Then she stopped and looked about her, altogether 
forgetting Vaudrey. 

The contrast between that silent reading-room and 
the many-colored crowd in that Oriental bazaar, whose 
murmurs reached her ears like the roaring of a distant 


PART SECOND 


399 


sea, and of which she could see only the corner clearly 
defined by the framework of the doors, amused Mari- 
anne, who with a smile on her lips, enjoyed the mischiev- 
ous delight of fooling a President of the Council. 

“ At least that avenges me for the cowardice that the 
other forced me to commit ! ” 

Then mechanically regarding the crowd that flowed 
through these docks , that contained everything that 
could please or disgust a whole world at once, the 
crowd, the clerks, the carpets, the linen, the crowding, 
the heaping, — all seemed strange and comic to her, 
novel and not Parisian, but American and up-to-date. 

“ Oh ! decidedly up-to-date ! — And so convenient ! ” 
she said, as she heard the young girls laugh when 
they finished their love-letters. 

Then she began to write, having surely found the ex- 
pressions she sought. She sent Rosas a letter of apology : 
she would be at his house to-morrow at the same hour. 
To-day, her uncle took up her day, compelling her to 
go to see his paintings, to visit the Louvre, to buy 
draperies for an Oriental scene that he intended to 
paint. If Rosas did not receive the letter in time, it 
mattered little ! To Lissac, — and this was the main con- 
sideration, — she intimated that she would call on him 
the next morning at ten o’clock. 

“ Rendezvous box ! ” she said, as she slipped her 
two letters into the letter-box. “This extreme com- 
fort is very ironical.” 


400 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


She smiled as she thought how long it would take to 
count the number of the little hands, some trembling, 
some bold, that had slipped into the rectilinear mouth 
of the letter-box some little missive that was either the 
foretaste or the postscript of adultery. 

Then she went downstairs and rejoined Vaudrey, who 
was impatiently tapping the floor of the carriage with 
his foot. 

“ I was a long time there, I ask your pardon,” said 
Marianne. 

“ At any rate, I hope you have bought something that 
suited you ? ” asked Vaudrey, who seemed to have 
caught a cold. - 

“ Nothing at all. There is nothing in that store ! ” 

Vaudrey was alarmed. Were they to visit one after 
the other all the fancy goods stores ? 

Marianne took pity on him. 

“ Let us return, shall we ? ” she asked. 

She called to the coachman : “ Rue Prony ! ” while 
Sulpice, whom she unwillingly took with her, though he 
wearily yawned, seized her hand and said as he sneezed : 

“ Ah ! how kind you are ! ” 

The next day, Marianne rang the bell of Lissac’s 
house in Rue d’Aumale, a little before the appointed 
hour. 

“ Punctual as a creditor ! ” she thought. 

She reached Guy’s, ready for anything. She was very 
pale and charming in her light costume, and she entered 


PART SECOND 


401 


as one would go into a fray with head high. She 
would not leave the place until she had recovered her 
letters. 

It was only for those scraps of paper that she again, 
as it were, bound and tied herself to her past; she 
wished to cut herself away from it and to tear them to 
pieces with her teeth. But what if Guy should refuse to 
give them up to her? That could not be possible, al- 
though he was sincerely attached to Rosas. Still, be- 
tween gratitude to a woman and duty to a friend, a man 
might hesitate, when he is a corrupted Parisian like 
Lissac. 

“ His affection for Jos6 will not carry him to the 
length of forgetting all that I have given him of my- 
self ! ” Marianne thought. 

Then shrugging her shoulders : 

“ After all, these men have such a freemasonry be- 
tween them, as he said ! — And they speak of our fra- 
ternity, we women ! — It is nothing compared with 
theirs ! ” 

Guy did not show any displeasure on hearing Made- 
moiselle Kayser announced. He was waiting for her. As 
Marianne could not feel free so long as he held the proof 
of her imprudence, some day or other she must inevita- 
bly seek him to supplicate or threaten him. The letter 
received overnight had apprised him that that moment 
had arrived. 

He had just finished dressing when she entered. His 
26 


402 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


suede gloves were laid out flat on a little table beside his 
hat, his stick and a small antique cloisonne vase into 
which were thrown the many-colored rosettes of his for- 
eign decorations, some of them red, amid which a little 
gold cross glistened like some brilliant beetle settled on 
a deep-hued rose. 

“ I wager that you are going out ! ” Marianne re- 
marked abruptly. “ Clearly, you did not expect me ! — 
Haven’t you received my letter? ” 

“ My dear Marianne,” he replied, as he slowly finished 
adjusting the knot of his cravat, “ that is the very re- 
mark you made when you condescended to reappear at 
my house after a lapse of some years. You have too 
modest a way of announcing yourself ; I assure you that, 
for my part, I always expect you — and that with impa- 
tience. But to-day, more than on any other occasion, 
because of your charming note.” 

She knew Guy well enough to perceive that his ex- 
quisite politeness only concealed a warlike irony. She 
did not reply, but stood smiling in front of the fireplace 
and warmed her toes at the light flames that leapt about 
the logs. 

“ You are exceedingly polite,” she said at last. “ On 
honor, I like you very much — you laugh? I say very 
much — Yes, in spite — In no case, have you had aught 
to complain of me.” 

She half turned, resting her left hand on the edge of 
the velvet-covered mantel, and cast a furtive, gentle 


PART SECOND 


403 

glance at Lissac that recalled a multitude of happy 
incidents. 

“ I have never complained,” said the young man, 
“and I have frequently expressed my thanks ! ” 

Marianne laughed at the discreet manner so ceremoni- 
ously adopted by Lissac. 

“You are silly, come! — We have a great liking for 
each other, and it is in the name of that affection that 
I come to ask a service.” 

“You have only to speak, my dear Marianne,” Lissac 
answered, as if he had not noticed the intimacy her 
words expressed. 

He affected a cold politeness; Marianne replied to 
him with apparent renewed tenderness. She looked 
at him for some time as if she hesitated and feared, 
her glance penetrating Lissac’s, and begging with a 
tearful petition that wished to kindle a flame in his 
eyes. 

“ What I have to say to you will take some time. I 
am afraid — ” 

“Of what?” he asked. 

“I don’t know. You are in a hurry? I interfere 
with you, perhaps ! ” 

“ Not the least in the world. I breakfast at the Club, 
take a turn in the Bois, and drop in at the Mirlitons 
to see the opening. You see that I should be entitled 
to very little merit in sacrificing to you a perfectly 
wasted day.” 


4 o 4 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ Is the present Exposition of the Mirlitons well 
spoken of ? ” asked Marianne, indifferently. 

“ Very. It is a collection of things that are to be sold 
for the benefit of a deceased artist. Would you like to 
go there at four o’clock? ” 

“ No, thanks ! — And I repeat, my dear Guy, that I 
will not hinder you, you know, if I have been indiscreet 
in giving you an appointment ! — ” 

She seemed to be mechanically toying with the silk 
rosettes in the little vase ; she picked them up and let 
them drop from her fingers like grains. 

“These are yours?” she asked. — “Come near that I 
may put them on ! ” 

She went to Guy, smilingly, and resting her body 
against his for its entire length, she paused for a mo- 
ment while she held the lapel of his jacket, and from 
head to foot she gazed at him with a look that seemed 
to impregnate him with odor and turned him pale. 

“ What an idea, Marianne ! I do not wear these rib- 
bons now.” 

“ A childish one. I remember that I was the first to 
place in this buttonhole some foreign decoration that 
Monsieur de Rosas brought you — ” 

She pronounced this name boldly, as if she would 
bring on the battle. 

“ That suits you well,” she continued. “ Orders on 
your coat are like diamonds in our ears — they are of no 
use, but they are pretty.” 


PART SECOND 


405 

She had passed a red rosette through the buttonhole, 
and lowering his head, Guy saw her fair brow, her blond 
locks within reach of his lips. They exhaled a perfume 
— the odor of hay, that he liked so well — and those 
woman’s fingers on his breast, the fingers of the woman 
whom he had mocked the previous night at the theatre, 
caused him a disturbing sensation. He gently disen- 
gaged himself, while Marianne repeated : “ That suits 
you well — ” Then her hand fell on his and she pressed 
his fingers in her burning and soft palm and said, as she 
half lowered her head toward him : 

“ Do you know why I have come? You know that I 
am silly. Well, naughty one, the other evening in that 
box when you punished me with your irony, all my love 
for you returned ! — Ah ! how foolish we are, we 
women ! Tell me, Guy, do you recall the glorious days 
we have spent? Those recollections retain their place 
in the heart ! Has the idea of living again as in the 
past never occurred to you? It was so sweet ! ” 

Lissac laughed a little nervously and trembled slightly, 
trying to joke but feeling himself suddenly weakening in 
the presence of this woman whose wrath or contemptu- 
ous smile he preferred. 

He recognized all the vanished perfumes. The sen- 
sation of trembling delight that years had borne away 
now returned to him. The silent pressure of the hands 
recalled nights of distraction. He half shut his eyes, a 
sudden madness overcame him, although he was suffi- 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


406 

ciently calm to say to himself that she had an end in 
view, this woman’s coming to him, loveless, to speak of 
love to him, herself unmoved by the senses, to awaken 
vanished feelings, to offer herself with the irresistible 
skill of desire : a dead passion born of caprice. 

“Nevertheless, it is you who left me, satiated after 
taking from me all that you were capable of loving,” she 
said. “ Do you know one thing, however, Guy? There 
is more than one woman in a woman. There are as 
many as she possesses of passions or joys, and the Mari- 
anne of to-day is so different from the one who was your 
mistress formerly ! — You would never leave me, if you 
were my lover now ! ” 

She tempted this man whose curiosity was aroused, 
accustomed as he was to casual and easy love advent- 
ures. He foresaw danger, but there within reach of his 
lips were experienced kisses, an ardent supplicant, a 
proffered delight, full of burning promise. In a sort of 
anger, he seized the woman who recalled all the past 
joys, uttered the well-known cries, and who suddenly, as 
in a nervous attack, deliriously plucked the covering 
from her bosom, and bared with the boldness of beauty 
that knows itself to be irresistible, her white arms, her 
brilliant, untrammeled breasts, the sparkling splendor of 
her flesh, with her golden hair unfastened, as she used 
to appear lying on a pillow of fair silk, almost faint and 
between her kisses, that were as fierce as bites, uttering : 
“I love you — you — I adore you — ” And the lovely, 


PART SECOND 


407 

imperious girl again became, almost without a word hav- 
ing been exchanged, the submissive woman carried away 
by lascivious ardor ; and Guy, confused and speechless, 
no longer reasoning, was unable to say whether Marianne 
belonged to him, or he to the mistress of former days, 
become the mistress of to-day. 

He held her clasped to him, his hand raising her pale, 
languishing face about which her fair hair fell loosely ; 
he looked at her as if sleeping, her pink nostrils still 
dilating with a spasmodic movement, and it seemed to 
him that he had just suffered from the perturbing con- 
tact of a courtesan in the depths of some luxurious den. 

It was an immediate reawakening, enervating but furi- 
ous. She had given herself impulsively. He recovered 
himself similarly. The sudden contact of two bodies 
resulted in the immediate recoil of two beings. 

With more bitter shame, he had had similar morose 
awakenings after a dissipated night, his heart, his brave 
heart thumping against the passionate form, often lean 
and sallow, of some satiated girl, fearfully weary. . 

What cowardice ! Was it Vaudrey’s mistress or the 
future wife of Rosas who had clung to his lips? 

He felt disgusted at heart. 

Yet she was adorable, this still young and lovely 
Marianne. 

With cruel perspicacity, he already foresaw that he 
would be guilty of cowardly conduct in yielding to this 
sudden weakness, and ashamed of himself he disengaged 


408 his excellency the minister 

himself from her hysterical embrace, while Marianne 
squatted on his bed, throwing back her hair from her 
face, still smiling as she looked at him and asked : 

“ Well — what? What is the matter with you, then? ” 

She rose slowly, slipping upon the carpet while he 
went to the window to look mechanically into the yard. 
Between these two creatures but a moment before clasped 
together, a sudden icy coldness sprung up as if each had 
divined that the hour was about to sound, terrible as a 
knell, when their affairs must be settled. The kisses of 
love are to be paid for. 

Standing before the mirror, half undressed, Marianne 
was arranging her hair. Her white shoulders, her still 
heaving and oppressed bosom were still exposed within 
the border of her fine chemisette. She felt her wrists, 
instinctively examining her bracelets, and looked toward 
the bed in an absent sort of way as if to see if some 
charm had not slipped from them. 

“ Guy,” she said abruptly, but in a tone which she 
tried to make endearing, “ promise me that you will not 
refuse what I am about to ask you.” 

“ I promise.” 

They now quite naturally substituted for the “ thou ” 
of affectionate address, the more formal “ you,” secretly 
realizing that after the intertwining of their bodies, their 
real individualities independent of all surprises or sensual 
appetite, would find themselves face to face. 

“ I could wish that our affection — and it is profound, 


PART SECOND 


4°9 

is it not, Guy? — dated only from the moment that we 
have just passed.” 

“ I do not regret the past,” he said. 

“ Nor I ! Yet I would like to efface it — yes, by a 
single stroke ! ” 

She held between her white fingers some rebellious 
little locks of hair that had come out, which she had 
rolled and twisted, and casting them into the clear flame, 
she said : 

“ See ! to bum it like that ! — Pft ! — ” 

“ Burn it? ” Lissac repeated. 

He had left the window, returned to Marianne and 
smiling in his turn, he said : 

“ Why burn it? — Because it is tiresome or because 
it is dangerous? ” 

“ Both ! ” she replied. 

She paused for a moment before continuing, drew up 
over her arms the lace of her chemisette, then half bend- 
ing her head, and looking at Guy like a creditor of love 
she said : 

•‘You still have my letters, my dear?” 

“Your letters?” 

“Those of the old days? ” 

“ That is so,” he said. “The past.” 

He understood everything now. 

“You came to ask me to return them?” 

“ I have been, you must admit, very considerate, not 
to have claimed them — before ! ” 


4io 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“You have been — generous ! ” answered Lissac, with 
a gracious smile. 

He opened his secretaire, one of the drawers of which 
contained little packages folded and tied with bands of 
silk ribbon, that slept the sleep of forgotten things. 

“ There are your letters, my dear Marianne ! But you 
have nothing to fear ; they have never left this spot.” 

The eyes of the young woman sparkled with a joyous 
light. Slowly as if afraid that Guy would not give them 
to her, she extended her bare arm toward the packet of 
letters and snatched it suddenly. 

“ My letters ! ” 

“ It is an entire romance,” said Lissac. 

“ Less the epilogue ! ” she said, still enveloping him 
with her intense look. 

She placed the packet on the velvet-covered mantel- 
piece and hastily finished dressing. Then taking be- 
tween her fingers those little letters in their old-fashioned 
envelopes bearing her monogram, and that still bore 
traces of a woman’s perfume, she looked at them for a 
moment and said to Lissac : 

“You have read them occasionally?” 

“ I know them by heart ! ” 

“ My poor letters ! — I was quite sincere, you know, 
when I wrote you them ! — They must be very artless ! 
Yours, that I have burned, were too clever. I remember 
that one day you wrote me from Holland : ‘ I pass my 
life among chefs-d’oeuvre, but my mind is far away from 


PART SECOND 


411 

them. I have Rembrandt and Ruysdael ; but the smallest 
millet seed would be more to my liking : millet is fair / ' 
Well, that was very pretty, but much too refined. True 
love has no wit. — All this is to convey to you that litera- 
ture will not lose much by the disappearance of my dis- 
connected scrawls.” 

She suddenly threw the packet into the fire and 
watched the letters as they lightly curled, at first spotted 
with fair patches, and enveloped in light smoke, then 
bursting into flame that cast its rosy reflection on 
Marianne’s face. Little by little all disappeared save a 
patch of black powder on the logs, that danced like 
a mourning veil fluttering in the wind and immediately 
disappeared up the chimney : — the dust of dead love, 
the ashes of oaths, all black like mourning crepe. 

Marianne watched the burning of the letters, bending 
her forehead, while a strange smile played on her lips, 
and an expression as of triumphant joy gleamed in her 
eyes. 

When the work was done, she raised her head and 
turned toward Guy and in a quivering voice, she said 
proudly and insolently : 

“ Requiescat ! See how everything ends! It is a 
long time since lovers who have ceased to love invented 
cremation ! Nothing is new under the sun ! ” 

She was no longer the same woman. A moment be- 
fore she manifested a sort of endearing humility but now 
she was ironically boastful, looking at Lissac with the air 


412 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


of one triumphing over a dupe. He bit his lips slightly, 
rubbing his hands together, as he examined them cas- 
ually, and without affectation. Marianne’s ironical smile 
told him all that she now had to* say. 

It was not the first time that he had been a witness to 
such a transformation of the feminine countenance be- 
fore and after the return of letters. Guy for some time 
had ceased to be astonished at anything in connection 
with women. 

“ Now, my dear,” said Marianne, “ I hope that you 
will do me the kindness of allowing me to go on in my 
own way in life, and that I shall not have the annoyance 
of finding you again in the way of my purpose.” 

“ I confess,” Lissac replied, “ that I should be the 
worst of ingrates if I did not forget many things in con- 
sideration of what I owe you, both in the present and 
in the past. Your burned letters still shed their fra- 
grance ! ” 

Marianne touched the half-consumed logs with the tip 
of her foot and the debris of the paper fluttered around 
her shoe like little black butterflies. 

“ I wish I could have destroyed the past as I have 
made those letters flame ! It weighs on me, it chokes 
me ! You do not imagine, perhaps,” she said, “ that I 
have forgiven you for your flight and all that followed 
it ? — If, for a moment, I almost stumbled in the mire, 
the fault was yours, for I loved you and you abandoned 
me, as a man forsakes a strumpet. — So, you see, my 


PART SECOND 


4i3 

dear, a woman never forgets it, and I would have cried 
out long before, if I had felt myself free, free as I am 
now that those letters are burned, the poor letters of a 
stupid mistress, confiding in her lover who is overcome 
with weariness, and who is only thinking of deserting 
her, while she is still intoxicated in yielding to him — 
and because I adored you — yes, truly — because I was 
your mistress, do you arrogate to yourself the right of 
preventing me from marrying as I wish, and of drawing 
myself out of the bog into which, perhaps, by your selfish- 
ness, I have fallen ? Ah, my dear fellow, really I am 
somewhat surprised at you, I swear ! — I said nothing 
because of those scraps of paper, that you would have 
been cowardly enough, I assert, to show Rosas and every 
line of which told how foolish I had been to love you.” 

“ Monsieur de Rosas would never have seen them ! ” 
said Lissac severely. 

She did not seem to hear him. 

“ But now, what ? Thank God,” she continued, 
“there is nothing, and you have delivered those letters 
to me that you ought never to have returned. And I 
have paid you for them, paid for them with new 
caresses and a last prostitution ! Well ! that ends it, 
doesn’t it ? There is nothing more between us, nothing, 
nothing, nothing ! — And these two beings, who exchanged 
here their loveless kisses, the kisses of a debauchee 
and a courtesan, will never recognize each other again, 
I hope — you hear, never recognize each other again — 


4 l 4 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


when they meet in life. Moreover, I will take care to 
avoid meetings ! ” 

Guy said nothing. 

He twirled his moustache slightly and continued to 
look at Marianne sideways without replying. 

This indifference, though doubtless assumed, never- 
theless annoyed the young woman. 

“ Go, find Monsieur de Rosas now ! ” she said. “ Tell 
him that you have been my lover, he will not believe you.” 

“ 1 am satisfied of that,” Lissac replied very calmly. 

She realized a threat in his very calmness. But what 
had she to fear now ? 

She fastened her ironical glance on Lissac, the better 
to defy him, and to enjoy his defeat. 

With extended hands, he noiselessly tapped his fingers 
together, the gesture of a person who waits, sure of him- 
self and displaying a mocking silence. 

“Then adieu ! ” she said abruptly. “ I hope that we 
shall never see each other again ! ” 

“ How can you help it ? ” said Lissac, smiling. “ In 
Paris ! ” 

He sat down on a chair, while Marianne stood, putting 
on her gloves. 

“ On my word, my dear Marianne, for a clever woman 
you are outrageously sanguine.” 

“ I ?” 

“ And credulous ! You credit me with the simplicity 
of the Age of Gold, then ? — Is it possible ? — Do you 


PART SECOND 415 

think a corrupted Parisian like myself would allow him- 
self to be trifled with like a schoolboy by a woman as 
extremely seductive as I confess you are ? But, my 
dear friend, the first rule in such matters is only to com- 
pletely disarm one’s self when it is duly proved that peace 
has been definitely signed and that a return to offensive 
tactics is not to be feared. You have shown your little 
pink claws too nimbly, Marianne. Too quickly and too 
soon. In one of those drawers, there are still one or 
two letters left, I was about to say, that belong to the 
series of letters that are slumbering : exquisite, perfumed, 
eloquent, written in that pretty, fine and firm writing 
that you have just thrown into the fire, and those letters 
I would only have given you on your continuing to act 
fairly. They were my reserve. It is an elementary rule 
never to use all one’s powder at a single shot, and one 
never burns en bloc such delicate autographs. They are 
too valuable ! Tell me, will you disdain to recognize 
me when you meet me, Miss Marianne ? ” 

She remained motionless, pale and as if frozen. 

“Then you have kept ? — ” she said. 

“ A postscriptum, if you like, yes.” 

“ Are you lying now, or did you lie in giving me the 
packet that has been burned ? ” 

“I did not tell you that the packet was complete, 
and what I now tell you is the simple truth ! I regret 
it, but you have compelled me to keep my batteries, in 
too quickly unmasking your own.” 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


416 

Marianne pulled off her gloves in anger. 

“ If you do not give me everything here that belongs 
to me, you are a coward ; you hear, a coward, Monsieur 
de Lissac ! ” 

“ Oh ! your insults are of as little importance as your 
kisses ! but they are less agreeable ! ” 

She clearly saw that she had thrown off the mask too 
soon, and that Lissac would not now allow himself to be 
snared by her caresses or disarmed by her threats. The 
game was lost. 

Lost, or merely compromised ? 

She looked about her with an expression of power- 
less rage, like a very graceful wild beast enclosed in a 
cage. Her letters, her last letters must be here, in one 
of those pieces of furniture whose drawers she might 
open with her nails. She threw her gloves on the floor 
and mechanically tore into shreds — as she always did 
when in a rage — between her nervous fingers, her fine 
cambric handkerchief reduced to rags. 

“ Be very careful what you are doing, Guy,” she said 
at last, casting a malicious look at him, “ I have pur- 
chased these letters from you, for I hate you, I repeat 
it, and these letters you owe to me as you would owe 
money promised to a wench. If you do not give them 
to me, I will have them, notwithstanding.” 

“ Really?” 

“ I promise you I will.” 

“And suppose I have burned them?” 


PART SECOND 


417 

“You lie, you have them here, you have kept them. 
You have behaved toward me like a thief.” 

“Nonsense, Marianne,” said Lissac coldly, “on my 
faith, I see I have done well to preserve some weapon 
against you. You are certainly very dangerous ! ” 

“ More than you imagine,” she replied. 

He moved slightly backward, seeing that she wished 
to pass him to reach the door. 

“You will not give me back my letters?” she asked 
in a harsh and menacing tone as she stood on the thresh- 
old of the room. 

Guy stooped without heeding her and picked up the 
gloves that were lying on the carpet and handed them 
to the young woman : 

“This is your property, I think? ” 

This was said with insolently refined politeness. 

Marianne took the gloves, and as a last insult, like 
a blow on the cheek, she threw them at Guy’s face, who 
turned aside and the gloves fell on the bed where just 
before these two hatreds had come together in kisses of 
passion. 

“ Miserable coward ! ” said Marianne, surveying Lissac 
from head to foot with an expression of scorn, while he 
stood still, his monocle dangling at the end of a fine 
cord on his breast, near the buttonhole of his jacket that 
bore the red rosette ; his face was pale but wore a sly 
expression. 

That silk rosette looked there like a vermilion note 

27 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


418 

stamped on a dark ground, and it seemed to pierce like 
a luminous drill into Marianne’s eyes ; and with her head 
erect, pallid face and trembling lip she passed before the 
domestic who hastened to open the door and went 
downstairs, repeating to herself with all the distracted 
fury of a fixed idea : 

“ To be avenged ! To be avenged ! Oh ! to be 
avenged ! ” 

She jumped into a cab. 

“Well?” — said the coachman, looking with blinking 
eyes at this pale-faced, distraught-looking woman. 

She remained there as if seeking an idea, a pur- 
pose. 

“Where shall we go?” repeated the driver. 

Suddenly Marianne’s face trembled with a joyous 
expression and she abruptly said : 

“ To the Prefecture of Police ! ” 


VI 

There was a crowd at the Mirlitons Exposition. 

A file of waiting carriages lined the kerbstone the whole 
length of Place Vendome. Beneath the arch and within 
the portal, groups of fashionable persons elbowed each 
other on entering or leaving, and exchanged friendly 
polite greetings ; the women quizzing the new hats, little 
hoods of plush or large Rembranesque hats in which the 


PART SECOND 


419 

delicate Parisian faces were lost as under the roof of a 
cabriolet. The liveried lackeys perfunctorily glanced at 
the cards of admission that the holders hardly took the 
trouble to present. One was seated at a table mechan- 
ically handing out catalogues. Through the open door 
of the Club’s Theatre could be seen gold frames sus- 
pended from the walls, terra cottas and marbles on their 
pedestals, and around the pictures and sculptures a dense 
crowd, masses of black hats inclined toward the paint- 
ings, side by side with pretty feminine heads crowned 
with Gainsborough hats adorned with plumes. It was 
impossible to see at close quarters the pieces offered for 
the sale that was for that day the engrossing topic of con- 
versation of All Paris. 

“A veritable salon in miniature ! ” said Guy aloud to 
an art critic who was taking notes. “ But to examine 
it comfortably one should be quite alone. For an hour 
past I have been trying to get a look at the Meissonier, 
but have not been able to do so. It is stifling here. I 
will return another time.” 

He quickly grasped the hand that held the pencil, 
and which was extended to him, and tried to make a 
passage through the crowd to the exit. Pushed and 
pushing, he smiled and apologized for his inability to 
disengage his arms that were held by the crowd as if in 
a vise, in order to salute the friends he recognized. At 
length he reached, giving vent to a grunt of satisfaction, 
the hall where visitors were sitting on divans, chatting, 


420 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


either less eager to view the pictures or satisfied in their 
desires. There, Guy instinctively looked at a mirror 
and examined the knot of his cravat. He did not notice 
that a gentleman with a closely buttoned frock-coat, on 
seeing him, quietly rose from the divan on which he had 
been sitting, and approached him, mechanically pulling 
the skirts of his coat meanwhile, so as to smooth the 
creases. 

He simply touched Monsieur de Lissac’s shoulder 
with the tip of his finger. 

Guy turned round, expecting to recognize a friend. 

“ You are surely Monsieur de Lissac? ” said the man in 
the frock-coat, with the refined manners of a gentleman. 

“Yes!” said Lissac, somewhat astonished at the 
coldness of his manner. 

“ Be good enough to accompany me, monsieur, I am 
a Commissioner of the Judiciary Delegations ! ” 

Lissac thought he misunderstood him. 

“ I confess that I don’t quite understand you,” he be- 
gan, with a rather significant smile. 

“I am a Commissioner of Police,” the other replied, 
“ and I am ordered to arrest you.” 

He suddenly exposed his insignia like the end of a 
sash, and by a very polite gesture, with an amiable and 
engaging manner, pointed to the way out by the side of 
the archway of the hotel. 

“ I have two of my men yonder, monsieur, but you 
will not place me under the necessity of — ” 


PART SECOND 


421 


“What is this, monsieur?” said Lissac. “I frankly 
confess that I understand nothing of this enigma. I 
hope you will explain it to me.” 

All this was said in a conversational tone, mezzo voce , 
and accompanied with smiles. No one could have 
guessed what these two men were saying to each other. 
Only, Guy was very pale and his somewhat haughty 
glance around him seemed to indicate that he was seek- 
ing some support or witness. 

He uttered a slight exclamation of satisfaction on per- 
ceiving the journalist to whom he had just before spoken 
a few words before a little canvas by Meissonier. 

“ My dear Brevans,” he said in a loud voice, “ here is 
an unpublished item for your journal. This gentleman 
has laid his hand on my collar.” 

With a sly look he indicated the Commissioner of 
Police, who did not budge. 

“ What ! my dear fellow? ” 

“ They have arrested me, that is all,” said Lissac. 

“ Monsieur,” the Commissioner quickly interrupted in 
a low voice, “no commotion, please. For my sake — 
and for yours.” 

He lightly touched Lissac’s buttonhole with the end of 
his finger, as if to intimate that there was the explana- 
tion of his arrest, and Guy suddenly became very red 
and stamped his foot. 

“ Idiot that I am ! — I am at your orders, monsieur,” 
he said, making a sign to the Commissioner to pass out. 


42 2 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


He again saluted the stupefied journalist, and the Com- 
missioner bowing to him, out of politeness or prudence, 
Guy passed before him, angrily twirling his mustache. 

Besides Br£vans, nobody in all that crowd suspected 
that a man had just been arrested in the midst of the 
Exposition. Unless the journalist had hawked the news 
from group to group, it would not have been suspected. 

Lissac found at the door of the Club on Place Ven- 
dome a hired carriage which had come up as soon as 
the driver saw the Commissioner. Two agents, having 
the appearance of good, peaceable bourgeois, were 
walking about, chatting together on the sidewalk, as if 
on duty. The Commissioner said to one of them : 

“ I have no further need of you, Crabot will do.” 

Crabot, a little man with the profile of a weasel, slowly 
mounted the box beside the coachman, the Commis- 
sioner of Police took his seat next to Lissac, who had 
nervously plucked the rosette of the Portuguese Order 
of Christ from his buttonhole. 

“ What ! ” he said. “ Really, then, it is for this ? 
Because I wear this ribbon without having paid five or 
six louis into the Chancellery ? — I have always intended 
to do so, but, believe me, I have not had the time. 
But a fiscal question does not warrant publicly in- 
sulting — ” 

“ I do not know if it is for that,” interrupted the 
Commissioner ; “ but it is evident that a recent note in 
the Officiel points directly to the illegal wearing of foreign 


PART SECOND 


423 


decorations. You do not read the Officiel ' Monsieur de 
Lissac.” 

Guy shrugged his shoulders as if he considered the 
matter perfectly ridiculous. It seemed to him that be- 
hind the alleged pretext there was some secret cause, 
something like a feminine intrigue. He vaguely recalled 
that he had seen Marianne one evening at Madame de 
Marsy’s smile at the Prefect of Police, that Jouvenet who 
flirted so agreeably with that pretty girl in a corner of 
the salon. And then, too, at the theatre, in Marianne’s 
box, the prefect found his way. At the first moment, 
the idea that Marianne had a hand in this arrest took 
possession of his mind. He saw her standing before him 
at his house, posing her little nervous, fidgety hand on 
his breast at the very spot occupied by this rosette; 
again he saw her smiling mysteriously, accompanying it 
with a caress which seemed to suggest the desire to end 
in a scratch. 

Was it really true that Marianne was sufficiently au- 
dacious to have brought about this coup de theatre? 
No, there was some error. The stupid zeal of some sub- 
ordinate officer was manifested in this outrage. Some 
cowardly charge had perhaps been made against him at 
the prefecture. Every man who crosses a street has so 
many enemies that look at him as he passes as if they 
would spy on him ! There are so many undeclared 
hatreds crawling in the rotten depths of this Parisian 
bog ! One fine morning one feels one’s self stung in the 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


424 

heel. It is nothing : only some anonymous gossip ; some 
unknown person taking revenge ! 

At the prefecture, they would doubtless inform Guy 
as to the cause of the attack : in questioning him, he 
would himself certainly be permitted to interrogate. He 
was stunned on arriving at the clerk’s office to find that 
they took his description, just as they would that of a 
common offender, a night-walker or a rascal. He wished 
to enter a protest and became annoyed. He flew into 
a rage for a moment, then he reflected that there was 
nothing to be done but to submit to the bites of the iron 
teeth of the police routine in which he was suddenly 
entangled. They searched his pockets and he felt their 
vile hands graze his skin. He experienced a strongly re- 
bellious sentiment and notwithstanding his present en- 
forced calm, from time to time he demanded to see the 
Prefect of Police, the Chief of the Municipal Police, the 
Juge Instruction, he did not know whom, but at least 
some one who was responsible. 

“You have my card, send my card to Monsieur Jouve- 
net ; he knows me!” 

They made no reply. 

The Commissioner who had arrested him was not there. 
Guy found himself in the presence of what were as pieces 
of human machinery, working silently, without noise of 
wheels, and caring for his protests no more than they did 
for the wind that blew through the corridors. 

“ See, on my honor, I am not a rascal ! ” he said. 


PART SECOND 


425 

“ What have I done? I have stupidly passed this bit of 
red ribbon into my buttonhole. Well! that is an offence, 
it is not a crime! People are not arrested for that ! I 
will pay the fine, if fine there is ! You are not going to 
keep me here with thieves? ” 

In that jail, he endeavored to preserve his appearance 
as a fashionable elegant and an ironical man of the world, 
treating his misadventure in a spirit of haughty disdain ; 
but his overstrained nerves led him to act with a sort of 
cold fury that gave him the desire to openly "oppose, as 
in a duel, his many adversaries. 

“ I beg you to remain calm,” one of these men repeated 
to him from time to time in a passionless way. 

“ Oh ! that is easy enough for you to say,” cried Lissac. 
“ I ask you once more, where is Monsieur Jouvenet? — I 
wish to see Monsieur Jouvenet ! ” 

“ Monsieur le Prefect cannot be seen in this way,” 
was the reply. “ Moreover, you haven’t to see any one ; 
you have only to wait.” 

“ Wait for what? ” 

They led Guy de Lissac through the passages to the 
door of a new cell, which they opened before him. 

“Then,” he said, as he tried to force a troubled smile, 
“ I am a prisoner? Quite seriously? As in melodrama? 
This is high comedy ! ” 

He asked if he would soon be examined, at least. 
They didn’t know. They hardly replied to him. Could 
he write, at any rate? Notify any one? Protest? 


42 6 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

What should he do? He heard from the lips of a keeper 
who had the appearance of a very honest man, the infor- 
mation, crushing as a verdict : “ You are in close confine- 
ment, as it is called ! ” 

In close confinement? Were they mocking him ? In 
secret, he, Lissac ? Evidently, they wanted to make fun ; 
it was absurd, it was unlikely, such things only happened 
in operettas. He would heartily relish it at the Caf£ 
Riche presently, when he went to dine. In close confine- 
ment? He was no longer annoyed at the jest, so amus- 
ing had it become. For an old Parisian like him, it was 
a facetious romance and almost amusing. 

“ A climax ! ” 

Evening passed and night came. They brought Lissac 
a meal, and the jest, as he called it, in no way came 
to an end. He did not close his eyes for the whole 
night. He was stifled, and grew angry within the narrow 
cage in which they had locked him. All sorts of wild 
projects of revenge passed through his brain. He would 
send his seconds to Monsieur Jouvenet, he would protest 
in the papers. He would have public opinion in his favor. 

Then his scepticism came to his aid, and shrugging 
his shoulders, he said : 

“ Bah ! public opinion ! It will ridicule me, that’s 
all ! It will accuse me of desiring to make a stir, to cut 
off my dog’s tail. To-day, Alcibiades would thus cut off 
his, but the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to 
Animals would bring an action against him.” 


PART SECOND 427 

He waited for the next morning with the feverish anx- 
iety of those who cannot sleep. Certainly he would be 
examined at the first moment. They did so in the case 
of the vagabonds gathered in during the night and 
dumped into the lions' den. The whole day passed with- 
out Lissac’s seeing any other faces than those of his turn- 
keys, and these men were almost mutes. Then his 
irritation was renewed. He turned his useless anger 
against himself, as he could not insult the walls. 

Night came round, and spite of himself, he slept for a 
short time on the wretched prison pallet. He began to 
find the facetious affair too prolonged and too gloomy. 
They took him just in time, the second day after his 
arrest, before a kind of magistrate or police judge, who, 
after having reminded him that the law was clear in respect 
of the wearing of foreign orders, announced that the 
matter was settled by a decree of nolle prosequi. 

“That is to say,” said Lissac, in anger, “that two 
nights passed in close confinement is regarded as ample 
punishment? If I am guilty of a crime, I deserve much 
more than that. But, if only a mere peccadillo is attrib- 
utable to me, I consider it too much; and I swear to 
you that I intend, in my turn, to summon to justice for 
illegal arrest — ” 

“ Keep quiet,” curtly interrupted the magistrate. 
“That is the best thing you can do ! ” 

Lissac, meantime, felt a sort of physical delight in 
leaving those cold passages and that stone dwelling 


428 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

The fresh breeze of a gray November day appeared to 
him to be as gentle as in spring. It seemed that he had 
lived in that den for weeks. He flung himself into a 
carriage, had himself driven home, and was received by 
his concierge with stupefied amazement. 

“ You, monsieur? ” he said. “ Already ! ” 

This already was pregnant with suggestiveness, and 
puzzled Lissac. The rumor had, in fact, spread through- 
out the quarter, and probably the porter had helped it 
along — that Guy had been arrested for complicity in some 
political intrigue, though of what nature was unknown. 
Nevertheless, the previous evening, the agents of police 
had come to the apartments in Rue d’Aumale and had 
searched everything, moved, tried and probed everything. 
Evidently they were in quest of papers. 

“ Papers? ” cried Lissac. “ Her letter, parbleu ! ” 

He was no longer in doubt. The delicate, dreaded 
hand of Marianne was at the bottom of all that. She had 
made some bargain with Monsieur Jouvenet, as between 
a woman and a debauchee ! The Prefect of Police was 
not the loser : Marianne Kayser had the wherewithal to 
satisfy him. 

“ The miserable wench ! ” Lissac repeated as he went 
up to his apartment. 

He rang and his servant appeared, looking as bewil- 
dered as the porter. 

The apartment was still topsy-turvy. The valet de 
chambre had not dared to put the things in order, as if 


PART SECOND 


429 

there reigned, amid the scattered packages and the 
yawning drawers, the majesty of the official seal. 

They had examined everything, forced locks and re- 
moved packets of letters. 

The small Italian cabinet, that contained Marianne’s 
letter, had had its drawers turned over, like pockets 
turned inside out. Marianne’s letter to Lissac, the scrap 
of paper which the police hunted, without knowing 
whose will they were obeying, that confession of a crazy 
mistress to a lover who was smitten to his very bones, 
was no longer there. 

“ Ah ! I will see Vaudrey ! I will see him and tell 
him ! ” said Lissac aloud. 

“ Will monsieur breakfast? ” 

“Yes, as quickly as possible. Two eggs and tea, I 
am in a hurry.” 

He was anxious to rush off to the ministry. Was the 
Chamber sitting to-day? No. He would perhaps then 
find Sulpice at his first call. The messengers knew 
him. 

He speedily hastened to Place Br£da, looking for a 
carriage. On the way, he stumbled against a man who 
came down on the same side, smoking a cigar. 

“ Oh ! Monsieur de Lissac ! ” 

Guy instinctively stepped back one pace ; he recog- 
nized Uncle Kayser. Then, suddenly, his anger, which 
up to that time he had been able to restrain, burst forth, 
and in a few words energetic and rapid, he told Simon, 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


430 

who remained bewildered and somewhat pale, as if one 
had tried to force a quarrel on him, what he thought of 
Marianne’s infamy. 

The uncle said nothing, regretted that he had met 
Lissac, and contented himself with stammering from 
time to time : 

“She has done that? — What! she has done that? — 
Ah ! the rogue.” 

“ And what do you say about it, you, Simon Kayser? ” 

“I? — What do I say about it? — Why — ” 

Little by little he recovered his sang-froid, looking at 
matters from the lofty heights of his artist’s philosophy. 

“It is rather too strong. What do you want? — It 
is not even moral, but it has character ! And in art, 
after the moral idea comes character ! Ah ! bless me ! 
character, that is something ! — Otherwise, I disapprove. 
It is brutal, vulgar, that lack of ideal. I defy you to 
symbolize that. Love Avenging Itself Against Love — 
Jealousy Calling the Police to Its Aid in Order to Tri- 
umph over Dead Love ! It is old, it lacks originality, it 
smacks of Prud’hon ! — The Correggio of the d£collet£ 
— It is like Tassaert, it is of the sprightly kind ! — I 
would never paint so, that is what I say about it ! ” 

Guy had no reply for this imperturbable moralist and 
he regretted that he had lost time in speaking to him. 
But his uncontrollable rage choked him. Enough re- 
mained however to show all his feelings to Vaudrey. 

The minister was not in his cabinet. A messenger 


PART SECOND 


43i 

asked Lissac if he would speak to Monsieur Warcolier, 
the Under Secretary of State. 

“ I, I,” then said a man who rose from the chair in 
which he had been sitting in the ante-chamber, “ I 
should be glad to see Monsieur Warcolier — Monsieur 
Eugene, you know.” 

“Very well, Monsieur Eugene, I will announce you.” 
Lissac explained that his visit was not official, he called 
on a personal matter. 

“ Is the minister in his apartments?” 

“ Yes, monsieur, but to-day, you know — ” 

What was going on to-day, then? Lissac had not 
noticed, in fact, that a marquee with red stripes was 
being erected at the entrance to the hotel, and that up- 
holsterers were bringing in wagons benches covered 
with red velvet with which they were blocking the peri- 
style. There was a reception at the ministry. 

“ That will not prevent Monsieur Vaudrey from seeing 
me,” he said. 

One of the messengers opened the doors in front of 
him and conducted him to the floor above, where Mon- 
sieur le Ministre was then resting near the fire and 
glancing over the papers after breakfast. 

He appeared pleased but a little astonished at seeing 
Lissac. 

“ Eh ! my dear Guy, what a good idea ! — Have you 
arrived already for the soiree ? You received your in- 
vitation? ” 


432 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ No,” answered Lissac, “ I have received nothing, or 
if the invitation arrived, the agents of Monsieur Jouvenet 
have taken it away with many other things.” 

“The agents ! what agents?” asked the minister. 

He had risen to receive Guy and remained standing 
in front of the fireplace looking at his friend, who ques- 
tioned him with his glance to discover if Vaudrey could 
really be in ignorance as to such a matter. 

“ Ah, so ! but,” said Lissac with trembling voice and 
in a tone of angry bitterness, “ do you not know then, 
what takes place in Paris? ” 

“What is happening?” asked Sulpice, who had 
turned slightly pale. 

“ They arrest men for nothing, and keep them in 
close confinement for two days in order to have time to 
search their correspondence for a document that com- 
promises certain persons. It is very proper, no doubt ; 
but that smacks too much of romanticism and the 
Bridge of Sighs. It is very old-fashioned and worn-out. 
I would not answer for your long employing such 
methods of government.” 

“Come, are you mad ? What does it all signify ? ” 
asked the minister, in astonishment. 

He appeared as if he really did not understand. It 
was clear that he did not know what Guy meant. 

“Don’t you read the papers, then?” Lissac asked 
him. 

“I read the reports of the Director of the Press.” 


PART SECOND 


433 

“ Well, if those reports have not informed you of my 
arrest in the heart of the Exposition des Mirlitons, on 
Wednesday, they have told you nothing ! — ” 

“Arrested! you?” 

“ By the agents of Monsieur Jouvenet, your Prefect of 
Police, to gratify your mistress, Mademoiselle Kayser ! ” 

“ Ah ! my dear Guy ! ” said the minister, whose 
cheek became flushed in spots. “ I should be glad if 
you — ” 

He paused for a phrase to express clearly and briefly 
that he required Lissac to be silent, but could not frame 
one. He received, as it were, a sudden and violent 
blow on the head. Beyond question, he did not know 
a word of all that Lissac had informed him. And yet 
this was the gossip of Paris for two days ! Either 
naming in full, or in indicating him sufficiently clearly, 
the newspapers had related the adventure on their front 
page. Moreover, much attention had been attracted to 
an article in a journal with which Lucien Granet was in- 
timately connected, wherein, in well-turned but perfidi- 
ous phrases, a certain Alkibiades — Lissac had guessed 
that this name was applied to him — had been arrested 
by the orders of the archon Sulpicios at the instance of 
a certain Basilea, one of the most charming hetaires of 
the republic of Perikles. Under this Greco- Parisian 
disguise it was easy for everyone to discover the true 
names and to see behind the masks the faces intended. 

At the very moment that Lissac called to ask the min- 
28 


434 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


ister for an explanation of the acts of the Prefect Jou- 
venet, Madame Vaudrey was opening a copy of a journal 
in which these names travestied by some Hellenist of the 
boulevard were underlined in red pencil. The article 
entitled The Mistress of an Archon, had been specially 
sent to her under a cover bearing the address in a 
woman’s handwriting, Sabine Marsy or Madame Gerson ! 
Some friend. One always has such. 

It was of Adrienne that Vaudrey thought while Lissac 
was giving vent to his ironical, blunt complaint. Was 
Guy mad to speak of Marianne aloud in this way, and in 
this place, a few feet away from his wife, who could hear 
everything? Yes, Lissac was over-excited, furious and 
apparently crazy. He did not lower his tone, in spite of 
the sudden terror expressed by Vaudrey, who seized his 
hand and said to him eagerly : “ Why, keep quiet ! Sup- 
pose some one is listening? ” 

He felt himself, moreover, impelled by a violent rage. 
If what Guy told him were correct, Marianne had made 
use of him and of the title of mistress that she ought to 
have concealed. She had played it in order to com- 
pel Jouvenet to commit an outrage. 

“ Nonsense ! ” said Lissac, sneeringly. “ Are you in- 
nocent enough to believe that she has seduced the Pre- 
fect of Police by simply telling him that she was your 
mistress? You don’t know her. She only did this in 
becoming his ! ” 

Sulpice had become livid, and he looked at Lissac 


PART SECOND 


435 

with a sudden expression of hatred, as if this man had been 
his enemy. Guy had directly attacked his vanity and 
his heart with a knife- thrust, as it were, without sparing 
either his self-love or his passion. 

“Ah ! yes,” said Lissac, “I know very well that that 
annoys you, but it is so ! I knew this young lady before 
you did. Let her commit all the follies that she chooses 
with others and throw me overboard at a pinch, as she 
did three days ago, all is for the best. She is playing 
her role. I am only an imbecile and I am punished for 
it, and it is well ; but, in order to attack me, to secure a 
very tiny paper, which put her very nicely at my mercy, 
that she should commit a foolish and brutal outrage 
against you who answer for the personnel of your admin- 
istration, I cannot forgive. She thought then that I 
would make use of this note against her ? She takes me 
for a rascal ? If I wished to commit an act of treachery, 
could I not go this very moment, even without the 
weapon that Jouvenet’s agents have taken from me, 
straight to her Rosas?” 

“Rosas?” asked Sulpice, whose countenance con- 
torted, and who feverishly twisted his blond beard. 

“ Eh ! par b leu } yes, Rosas ! On my honor, one would 
take you for the Minister of the Interior of the Moon ! 
Rosas, who perhaps is her lover, but will be her husband 
if she wishes it ! and she does ! ” 

Poor Sulpice looked at Lissac with a terrified expres- 
sion which might have been comic, did it not in its 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


43 6 

depth portray a genuine sorrow. He was oblivious to 
everything now, where he was, if Guy spoke too loudly, 
or if Adrienne could hear. He was only conscious of a 
terrible strain of his mind. This sudden revelation 
lacerated him — as if his back received the blows of a whip. 
He wished to know all. He questioned Lissac, forcing 
him into a comer, and making him hesitate, for he now 
feared that he would say too much, and limited himself 
to demanding Jouvenet’s punishment. 

“As to Marianne, one would see to that after,” he 
said. 

Ah ! yes, certainly, Jouvenet should be punished ! 
How? Vaudrey could not say, but from this moment 
the Prefect of Police was condemned. Guy’s arrest, 
which was an act of brutal aggression, was tantamount to 
a dismissal signed by the Prefect himself. And Mari- 
anne ! she then made a sport of Sulpice and took him 
for a child or a ninny ! 

“ Not at all. For a man who loves, that is enough,” 
replied Lissac. 

Vaudrey had flung himself into an armchair, striking 
his fist upon the little table, covered with the journals 
that he had scarcely opened, and absent-mindedly push- 
ing the chair back, the better to give way to his exces- 
sively violent threats, after the manner of weak 
natures. 

“Do you want my advice?” Lissac abruptly asked 
him. “ You have only what you deserve, ah ! yes, that 


PART SECOND 


437 

is just it ! I tell you the sober truth. A wife like yours 
should never be forsaken for a creature like Marianne ! ” 

“ I love Adrienne sincerely ! ” replied Vaudrey eagerly. 

“ And you deceive her entirely. That is foolish. You 
deserve that Mademoiselle Kayser should have ridiculed, 
deceived and ruined you irretrievably, and that your 
name should never be uttered again. When one has 
the opportunity to possess a wife like yours, one adores 
her on bended knees, you understand me, and one 
doesn’t destroy her true happiness to divert it in favor 
of the crowd. And what pleasure ! Jouvenet has had 
the same dose at a less cost ! ” 

“ You abuse the rights of friendship, somewhat,” said 
Sulpice, rising suddenly. “ I do what pleases me, as 
it pleases me, and I owe no account to any one, I 
think!” 

He stopped suddenly. His feet were, as it were, 
nailed to the floor and his mouth closed. He seized 
Guy’s hand and felt his flesh creep, as he saw Adrienne 
standing pale, and supporting herself against the door- 
post, as if she had not the strength to proceed, her eyes 
wide open, like those of a sick person. 

Assuredly, beyond all possible doubt, she had heard 
everything. 

She was there ! she heard ! 

She said nothing but moved a step forward, up- 
held by a terrible effort. 

Her look was that of a whipped child, of a poor crea- 


438 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

ture terrified and in despair, and expressed not anger 
but entire collapse. She was so wan, so sad-looking, 
that neither Lissac nor Vaudrey dared speak. A chill 
silence fell upon these three persons. 

While Adrienne approached the table upon which the 
journals were piled, Guy was the first to force a smile to 
throw her off the scent ; Adrienne stopped him with a 
gesture that was intended to express that to undeceive 
her, that is to say, to deceive her afresh, would be a still 
more cowardly act. She took from among the journals 
that which she had just been reading without at first 
quite understanding it, the one that had been sent to 
her, underlined as with a venomous nail, and showing to 
Vaudrey the article that spoke of Sulpicios and Basilea, 
she said gently in a feeble voice, crushed by this crum- 
bling of her hopes : 

“That is known then, that affair ! ” 

Then she sunk exhausted into the armchair in which 
Sulpice had been sitting, and her breast heaved with a 
violent sob that tore it as if it would rend it. 

Sulpice looked at Lissac who was standing half-inclined, 
as in the presence of a misfortune. He instinctively 
seized the minister by the shoulder and gently forced 
him toward Adrienne, saying to him in a whisper, in 
ill-assured tones : 

“ Kiss her then ! One pardons when one loves ! ” 
With a supplicating cry, Vaudrey threw himself on 
his knees before Adrienne, while Lissac hastily opened 


PART SECOND 


439 

the door and left, feeling indeed that he could not say a 
word and that Vaudrey only could obtain Vaudrey’s 
pardon. 

“ I, in my anger,” he said, “ he, in his jealousy, have 
allowed ourselves to get into a passion. It is stupid. 
One should speak lower.” 

He went away, much dissatisfied with himself and but 
little less with Vaudrey. Again he considered this man 
foolish, adored as he was by such a wife, whom he de- 
ceived. He was not sure that at the bottom of his own 
heart he did not feel a sentiment of love toward Adrienne. 
Ah ! if he had been loved by such a creature, he would 
have been capable of great things ! — He would have 
arranged and utilized his life instead of spoiling it. In 
place of vulgar love, he would have kept this unique 
love intact from the altar to the tomb ! 

Pale and tottering, and a child once more under her 
sorrow, as he had just seen her, she was so adorably 
lovely that he had received an entirely new impression, 
one of almost jealousy against Sulpice, and therefore, 
brusquely overcoming this strange, unseemly emotion, he 
had himself thrust Vaudrey toward his wife and had 
departed hastily, as if he felt that he must hurry away 
and never see them again. But as he left, on the con- 
trary he saw her again with her sad, wretched, suffering 
look and the young wife’s sorrowful voice went with him, 
repeating in a tone of broken-hearted grief : 

“That is known then ! ” 


440 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“Ah ! that miserable fellow, Vaudrey ! ” thought Guy. 

In going out, he had to wait a moment in the ante- 
chamber, to admit of the passage of some vases of 
flowers, green shrubs and variegated foliage plants that 
were being brought in to decorate the salons. A fete ! 
And this evening ! In the arrival of those flowers for 
decoration, at the moment when chance, clumsily or 
wickedly, so suddenly revealed that crushing news, Guy 
saw so much irony that he could not forbear looking at 
them for a moment, almost insulting in their beauty and 
their hothouse bloom. 

Would A.drienne have the courage or strength to 
undertake the reception of the evening, within a few 
hours ? Guy was annoyed at having come. 

“ I could well have waited and kept my anger to 
myself. The unhappy woman would have known noth- 
ing.” 

“ Bah ! ” he added. “ She is kind, she adores Sulpice, 
it is only a passing storm. She will forgive ! ” 

He promised himself, moreover, to return in the even- 
ing, to excuse himself to Adrienne, to comfort her if 
he could. 

“There is some merit, after all, in that,” he thought 
again. “ On my word ! I believe I love her and yet I 
am angry with that animal Vaudrey for not loving her 
enough.” 

She will forgive ! — Lissac knew courtesans but he did 
not know this woman, energetic as she was under her 









» • 













































» » 










A •'I M^ne del v vr v 















ft » 




























PART SECOND 


441 


frail appearance, a child, a little provincial lost in the 
life of Paris, lost and, as it were, absorbed in the hub- 
bub of political circles, smitten with her husband, who 
comprehended in her eyes every seduction and superi- 
ority, having given herself entirely and wishing to wholly 
possess the elect being who possessed her, in whom she 
trusted and to whom she gave herself, body and soul, 
with all her confidence, her innocence and her modesty. 
He did not know what such a sensitive, nervously frail 
nature could feel on the first terrible impulses, full of 
enthusiasm under her exterior coldness, of resolution 
concealed under her timid manners, capable of madness, 
distracted in spite of her reason and calm ; this candor 
of thought, of education, and associations that made her, 
with all her irresistible attractiveness, the virtuous woman 
with all her charm. 

Adrienne had at first read the journal that had been 
sent to her without understanding anything about it. 
Alkibiades, Basilea, the mistress of the Archon, what 
signified that to her? What did it mean? Then sud 
denly her thought rested on the name of Sulpice, traves- 
tied in the Greek of parody, Sulpicios. Was it of her 
husband that they intended to speak? She immediately 
felt a bitter anguish at heart, but it was a matter only of 
allowing one’s self to be impressed by a journalistic 
pleasantry, as contemptible as an anonymous letter ! 
She would think no more about it. She must concen- 
trate her thoughts on the evening’s reception. There 


444 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


more, he was speechless, overwhelmed, and sought a 
hand that was refused. 

“ Will you never forgive me?” he asked at last, not 
knowing too well what he said. 

“ Never ! ” she said coldly. 

She rose and with as much sudden energy as but a 
moment before she had felt of weakness, she crossed the 
room. 

“Are you going away? ” stammered Sulpice. 

“ Yes, I must be alone — Ah ! quite alone,” she said, 
with a sort of gesture of disgust as she saw her husband 
approach her. 

He stopped and said, as if by chance : 

“You know that — this evening — ” 

“Yes, yes,” she replied, “do not be anxious about 
anything ! I am still the minister’s wife, if I am Madame 
Vaudrey no longer.” 

He tried in vain to reply. 

Adrienne had already disappeared. 

“There is the end of my happiness ! ” Sulpice stam- 
mered as he suddenly confronted an unknown situation 
dark as an abyss. “ Ah ! how wretched I am ! Very 
wretched ! whose fault is it ? ” 

He plunged gladly into the work of examining the 
bundles of reports from the prefects, feverishly inspect- 
ing them to deafen and blind his conscience, and seized 
at every moment with a desire to make an appeal to 
Adrienne or to go and insult Marianne. Oh ! especially 


FART SECOND 


445 

to tell Marianne that she had betrayed him, that she 
was a wretch, that she was the mistress of Rosas, the 
mistress of Jouvenet, a strumpet like any other strumpet, 
yes, a strumpet ! 

Amid all the disturbance of that day of harsh mis- 
fortune, perhaps he thought more of the Marianne that 
he had lost than of the Adrienne that he had outraged ; 
while the wife questioned with herself if it were really 
she coming and going, automatically trying on her ball 
costume, abandoning her head to the hair-dresser, feel- 
ing that in two hours she would be condemned to smile 
on the minister’s guests, the senators and the deputies 
and play the part of a spectre, marching in the land of 
dreams, in a nightmare that choked her, fastened on 
her throat and heart and prompted her to cry and weep, 
all her poor nerves intensely strained and sick, subdued 
by the energy of a tortured person, imposing on herself 
the task of not appearing to suffer and — a still more 
atrocious thing — of not even suffering in reality and 
waiting, yes, waiting to sob. 

In the evening, everything blazed on the facade of 
the ministry. The rows of gas-jets suggested that a 
public fete was being held in the Hotel Beauvau. The 
flaming capital letters R. F. were boldly outlined against 
the dark sky, the three colors of the flags looked bright 
in the ruddy light of the gas. Carriages rolled over the 
sanded courtyard, giving up at the carpeted entrance to 
the hotel the invited guests dressed in correct style, the 


446 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

women wrapped in ample cloaks with gold fringe of 
trimmed with fur, and all poured into the antechamber, 
brushing against the Gai'des de Paris in white breeches, 
with grounded arms, forming a row and standing out 
like Caryatides against the shining, large leaved green 
flowers on which their white helmets shone by the light 
of the lustres. In the dressing-room, the clothing was 
piled up, tied together in haste ; the antechamber was 
quickly crossed, the women in passing casting rapid 
glances at the immense mirrors; a servant asked the 
names of the guests and repeated them to an usher, whose 
loud voice penetrated these salons that for many years 
had heard so many different names, of all parties, under 
all regimes, and proclaimed them in the usual common- 
place manner, while murdering the most celebrated of 
them. Upon the threshold of the salon, filled with fash- 
ionable people and flooded with intense light, stood 
the minister who had been receiving, greeting, bow- 
ing, ever since the opening of the soiree, to those 
who arrived, some of whom he did not know ; crowding 
behind him, correctly dressed, stood his secretaries, the 
members of his cabinet appropriating their shares of the 
greetings extended to the Excellency, and at his side 
stood Madame Vaudrey, pale and smiling as the creatures 
of the other world, she also bowed and from time to time 
extended her gloved hand mechanically ; pale she looked 
in her d6collet£ gown of white satin, clasped at the 
shoulders with two pearl clasps, a bouquet of natural 


PART SECOND 


447 

roses in her corsage, and standing there like a melan- 
choly spectre on the very threshold of the festive salons. 

When she perceived Guy enter, she greeted him with 
a sad smile, and Vaudrey eagerly offered his hand to him 
as if he relied greatly on him to arrange matters. 

Adrienne’s repressed grief had pained Lissac. While 
to the other guests she appeared to be only somewhat 
fatigued, to him the open wound and sorrow were visible. 
He plunged into the crowd. Beneath the streaming 
light the diamonds on the women’s shoulders gleamed 
like the lustres’ crystals. Within a frame of gobelins and 
Beauvais tapestry taken from the repository, was an im- 
provised scene that looked like a green and pink nest of 
camellias, dracaenas and palms. The bright toilettes of 
the women already seated before this scenic effect pre- 
sented a wealth of pale blue, white or pink silk, mother- 
of-pearl shoulders, diamonds, and bows of pink or feather 
headdresses. Guy recognized Madame Marsy in the 
front row, robed in a very low-cut, sea-green satin robe 
with a bouquet of flowers at the tip of the shoulder, who 
while fanning herself looked with haughty impertinence 
at the pretty Madame Gerson, her former friend. Ma- 
dame Evan was numerously surrounded, she was the 
most charming of all the stylish set and the woman whom 
all the others tried to copy. 

Behind this species of female flower-bed the black 
coated ranks crowded, their sombre hue relieved here 
and there by the uniform of some French officer or 


448 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

foreign military attach^. There was a profusion of 
orders, crosses and strange old faces, with red ribbons at 
the neck, deputies evidently in dress, youthful attaches 
of the ministry or embassy, correct in bearing and 
officious, their crush-hats under their arms and holding 
the satin programme of the musicale soiree in their hands, 
some numbers of which were about to be rendered. 
Under the ceilings that were dappled with painted clouds, 
surrounded by brilliant lights and a wealth of flowers, 
this crowd presented at once an aspect of luxury and 
oddity, with its living antitheses of old parliamentarians 
and tyros of the Assembly. 

Intermingled with strains of music, were whisperings 
and the confused noise of conversations. 

Guy watched with curiosity, as a man who has seen 
much and compares, all this gathering of guests. From 
time to time he greeted some one of his acquaintance, 
but this was a rare occurrence. He was delighted to see 
Ramel whom he had often met at Adrienne’s Wednesdays , 
and whom he liked. He appeared to him to be fatigued 
and sick. 

“ I am not very well, in fact,” said Ramel. “ I have 
only come because I had something serious to say to 
Vaudrey.” 

“ What then?” asked Lissac. 

“ Oh ! nothing ! some advice to give him as to the 
course to be followed. There is decidedly much under- 
hand work going on about the President.” 


PART SECOND 


449 


“ Who is it? ” 

“ Most of them are here ! ” 

“ His guests? ” 

“ You know very well that when one invites all one’s 
friends, one finds that three-quarters of one’s enemies 
will be present.” 

“ At least,” said Lissac. 

He continued to traverse the salons, always returning 
instinctively toward the door at which Adrienne stood, 
with pale face and wandering look, and scarcely hearing, 
poor woman, the unfamiliar names that the usher uttered 
at equal intervals, like a speaking machine. 

“ Monsieur Durosoi ! — Monsieur and Madame Bre- 
chet ! — Monsieur the Minister of Public Works ! — Mon- 
sieur the Prefect of the Aube ! — Monsieur the Count de 
Grigny ! — Monsieur Henri de Prangins ! — Monsieur the 
General d’Herbecourt ! — Monsieur le Doctor Vilandry! — 
Monsieur and Madame Tochard ! ” 

She had vowed that she would be strong, and allow 
nothing to be seen of the despair that was wringing her 
heart. She compelled herself to smile. In nightmares 
and hours of feverish unrest, she had suffered the same 
vague, morbid feeling that she now experienced. All 
that passed about her seemed to be unreal. These 
white-cravatted men, these gaily-dressed women, the file 
of guests saluting her at the same spot in the salon, with 
the same expression of assumed respect and trite polite- 
ness, appeared to her but a succession of phantoms. 
2 9 


448 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

foreign military attach^. There was a profusion of 
orders, crosses and strange old faces, with red ribbons at 
the neck, deputies evidently in dress, youthful attaches 
of the ministry or embassy, correct in bearing and 
officious, their crush-hats under their arms and holding 
the satin programme of the musicale soiree in their hands, 
some numbers of which were about to be rendered. 
Under the ceilings that were dappled with painted clouds, 
surrounded by brilliant lights and a wealth of flowers, 
this crowd presented at once an aspect of luxury and 
oddity, with its living antitheses of old parliamentarians 
and tyros of the Assembly. 

Intermingled with strains of music, were whisperings 
and the confused noise of conversations. 

Guy watched with curiosity, as a man who has seen 
much and compares, all this gathering of guests. From 
time to time he greeted some one of his acquaintance, 
but this was a rare occurrence. He was delighted to see 
Ramel whom he had often met at Adrienne’s Wednesdays , 
and whom he liked. He appeared to him to be fatigued 
and sick. 

“ I am not very well, in fact,” said Ramel. “ I have 
only come because I had something serious to say to 
Vaudrey.” 

“What then?” asked Lissac. 

“ Gh ! nothing ! some advice to give him as to the 
course to be followed. There is decidedly much under- 
hand work going on about the President.” 




PART SECOND 


449 


“ Who is it? ” 

“ Most of them are here ! ” 

“ His guests? ” 

“ You know very well that when one invites all one’s 
friends, one finds that three-quarters of one’s enemies 
will be present.” 

“ At least,” said Lissac. 

He continued to traverse the salons, always returning 
instinctively toward the door at which Adrienne stood, 
with pale face and wandering look, and scarcely hearing, 
poor woman, the unfamiliar names that the usher uttered 
at equal intervals, like a speaking machine. 

“ Monsieur Durosoi ! — Monsieur and Madame Bre- 
chet ! — Monsieur the Minister of Public Works ! — Mon- 
sieur the Prefect of the Aube ! — Monsieur the Count de 
Grigny ! — Monsieur Henri de Prangins ! — Monsieur the 
General d’Herbecourt ! — Monsieur le Doctor Vilandry! — 
Monsieur and Madame Tochard ! ” 

She had vowed that she would be strong, and allow 
nothing to be seen of the despair that was wringing her 
heart. She compelled herself to smile. In nightmares 
and hours of feverish unrest, she had suffered the same 
vague, morbid feeling that she now experienced. All 
that passed about her seemed to be unreal. These 
white-cravatted men, these gaily-dressed women, the file 
of guests saluting her at the same spot in the salon, with 
the same expression of assumed respect and trite polite- 
ness, appeared to her but a succession of phantoms. 

29 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


45 ° 

Neither a name nor an association did she attach to 
those countenances that beamed on her with an official 
smile or gravely assumed a correct seriousness. She 
felt weary, overwhelmed and heavy-headed at the sight 
of this continued procession of strangers on whom it was 
incumbent that she should smile and to whom she must 
bow out of politeness, in virtue of that duty of state 
which she wished to fulfil to the last degree, poor soul ! 

The distant music of Fahrbach’s polkas or Strauss’s 
waltzes seemed like an added accompaniment that 
mocked the sadness of her unwholesome dream. 

“ And yet, in all that crowd of women who salute her, 
there are some who are jealous of her ! Many envy 
her ! ” thought Guy, who was looking on. 

Adrienne did not look at Vaudrey. She was afraid 
that if her eyes met her husband’s fixed on her own, she 
would lose her sang-froid and suddenly burst into sobs, 
there before the guests. That would have been ridicu- 
lous. This blonde, so feebly gentle, isolated herself, 
therefore, with surprising determination and seemed to see 
nothing save her own thought, the unique thought : “ Be 
strong. You shall weep at your ease when you are alone, 
far away from these people, far away from this crowd, 
alone with yourself, entirely alone, entirely alone ! ” 

Vaudrey was very pale, but carried away, in spite of 
himself, by the joy which he felt in receiving all the illus- 
trious and powerful men of the state, foreign ambas- 
sadors. the Presidents of the Senate and the Chamber, 


PART SECOND 


451 

the ministers, his colleagues, deputies, wealthy financiers, 
renowned publicists, in fact, everything that counts and has 
a name in Paris, — this minister, happy to see the crowd 
running to him, at his house, bowing, paying homage to 
him, for a moment forgot the crushing events of that day, 
the sudden thunderbolt falling on him and perhaps, as 
he had said, crushing his hearthstoneo 

He no longer thought of anything but what he saw : 
salutations, bowed heads, inclinations that succeeded 
each other with the regularity of a clock, that succession 
of homages to the little Grenoble advocate, now become 
Prime Minister. 

Oblivious of everything else, he had lost the recollec- 
tion of his mistress, and he suddenly grew pale and 
looked instinctively with terror at Adrienne, who was 
as pale as a corpse. — A visitor had just been announced 
by the usher, in his metallic voice, and the name that 
he cried mechanically, as he had uttered all the others, 
echoed there like an insult. 

Guy de Lissac shook through his entire frame, as he 
too heard it. 

“ Monsieur Simon Kayser and Mademoiselle Kayser ! ” 
— cried the usher. 

Still another name rang out from that clarion voice : 

“ Monsieur le Due de Rosas ! ” 

Neither Vaudrey nor Adrienne heard this name. 
Sulpice felt urged to rush toward Marianne to entreat 
her to leave. It is true, he had invited her. In spite 


452 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


of Jouvenet who knew all, and in spite of so many others 
who suspected the truth, she desired to be present at 
that fete at the ministry and to show herself to all. 
Vaudrey had warned her, however. He had written to 
her a few hours before, entreating her, nay, almost com- 
manding her, not to come, and she was there. She 
entered, advancing with head erect, leaning on the arm 
of her uncle, his white cravat hidden by his artist’s beard 
and on his lips a disdainful smile. 

Adrienne asked herself whether she was really dream- 
ing now. Approaching her, she saw, crossing the salon 
with a queenly step, that lovely, insolent creature, trailing 
a long black satin skirt, her superb bosom imprisoned in 
a corsage trimmed with jet, and crossed, as it were, 
with a blood-red stripe formed by a cordon of roses. 
Marianne’s fawn-colored head seemed to imperiously 
defy from afar the pale woman who stood with her 
two hands falling at her side as if overwhelmed. 

The vision, for vision it was, approached like one of 
the nightmares that haunt people’s dreams. Adrienne’s 
first glance encountered the direct gaze of Marianne’s 
gray eyes. Behind Mademoiselle Kayser came De Rosas, 
his ruddy Castilian face that was ordinarily pensive 
beamed to-day, but Madame Vaudrey did not perceive 
him. She saw only this woman, the woman who was ap- 
proaching her, in her own house, insolently, impudently, 
to defy her after having outraged her, to insult her after 
having deceived her ! 


PART SECOND 


453 

Adrienne felt a violent wrath rising within her and 
suddenly her entire being seemed longing to bound 
toward Marianne, to drive her out after casting her name 
in her teeth. 

Instinctively she looked around her with the wild 
glance of a wretched woman who no longer knows 
what to do, as if seeking for some assistance or ad- 
vice. 

Vaudrey’s wan pallor and Lissac’s supplicating gesture 
appealed to her and at once restored her to herself. It 
was true ! she had no right to cause a scandal. She was 
within the walls of the ministry, in a common salon into 
which this girl had almost a right to enter, just like so 
many others lost in the crowd of guests. For Adrienne, 
it was not merely a question of personal vanity or honor 
that was at stake, but also Vaudrey’s reputation. She 
felt herself in view , ah ! what a word : — in view, that it 
to say, she was like an actress to whom neither a false 
step nor a false note is permitted ; compelled to smile 
while death was at her heart, to parade while her entrails 
were torn with grief, forced to feign and to wear a mask 
in the presence of all who were there, and to lie to all 
the invited guests, indifferent and inimical, as Ramel 
said, and who were looking about ready at any moment 
to sneer and to hiss. 

She recovered, by an effort that swelled her heart, 
strength to show nothing of the feeling of indignant re- 
bellion that was stifling her. 


454 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


She closed her eyes. 

Marianne Kayser passed onward, losing herself with 
Simon and De Rosas in the human furrow that opened 
before her and immediately closed upon her, and fol- 
lowed by a murmur of admiration. 

Adrienne had not however seen the pale, insolent 
countenance of the young woman so closely approach 
her suffering and disconsolate face. Above all, she had 
not seen the jealous, rapid glance that flashed uncon- 
sciously in Vaudrey’s eyes when he saw Jose de Rosas 
triumphantly following the imperious Marianne. Ah ! 
that look of sorrowful anger would have penetrated like 
a red-hot iron into Adrienne’s soul. That glance that 
Guy caught a glimpse of told eloquently of wounded 
love and bruised vanity on the part of that man who, 
placed here between these two women, his mistress and 
the other, suffered less from the sorrow caused to 
Adrienne than from Marianne’s treason in deserting him 
for this Spaniard. 

Lissac was exasperated. He felt prompted to rush 
between Marianne and Rosas and say to him : 

“You are mad to accompany this woman ! Mad and 
ridiculous ! She is deceiving you as she has deceived 
Vaudrey, as she has deceived me, and as she will deceive 
everybody.” 

He purposely placed himself in Mademoiselle Kayser’s 
way. She had appeared scarcely to recognize him and 
had brushed against him without apparent emotion, but 


PART SECOND 


455 

with a disdainful pout. Her arm had sought that of 
Rosas, as if she now were sure of her duke. 

Guy too, felt that he could not cause a scene at the ball, 
for this would have brought a scandal on Vaudrey. He 
had just before repeated to Adrienne : “ Courage.” 
This was now his own watchword, and yet he sought out 
Jouvenet to whisper to the Prefect of Police what he 
thought of his conduct. Jouvenet had come and gone. 
Granet, as if he had divined Lissac’s preoccupation, 
looked at him sneeringly as he whispered to the fat 
Molina who was seated near him : 

“ Alkibiades ! ” 

The soiree, moreover, was terribly wearisome to Lissac. 
He wandered from group to group to find some one 
with whom to exchange ideas but he hardly found any- 
one besides Denis Ramel. The same political common- 
places retailed everywhere, at Madame Gerson’s or at 
Madame Marsy’s, as in the corridors of the Cham- 
ber, were re-decocted and reproduced in the corners of 
the salon of the Ministry, and around the besieged buffet 
attacked by the most ferocious gluttony. Interpellation , 
Majority , New Cabinet Homogeneous , Ministry of the 
Elections , Ballot \ One Man Ballot . Guy went, weary of 
the conflict, to the room in which the concert was given 
and listened to some operatic piece, or watched between 
the heads, the hidden profile of some female singer or 
an actor and heard the bursts of laughter that greeted 
the new monologue The Telephone , rendered in a clear 


45 6 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

voice with the coolness of an English clown, by a gentle- 
man in a dress coat : See ! I am Monsieur Durand — 
you know , Durand — of Meaux ? — Exactly — A woman 
deceives me — How did I learn it? — By the telepho7ie. 
My friend Durand — Durand — of Etampes — We are not 
related — Emile Durand said to me : Durand ’ why haven' t 
you a telephone ? — It is true , I hadn't one — Durand — 
the other Durand — Durand — of Etampes — has one — 
Then — And Lissac, somewhat listless, left this corner of 
the salon and stumbled against a group of men who sur- 
rounded an old gentleman much decorated, wearing the 
grand cordon rouge crosswise, a yellow ribbon at his 
neck, who, with the gravity of an English statesman, 
said, thrusting his tongue slightly forward to secure his 
false teeth from falling : 

“ I like monologues less • than chansonnettes ! — I, 
who address you, have taken lessons from Levas- 
sor.” 

“ Levassor, Your Excellency?” answered in chorus a 
lot of little bald-headed young men — diplomats. 

“ Levassor,” replied the old gentleman who was the 
very celebrated ambassador of a great foreign power. 
“ Oh ! I was famous in the song : The Englishman Who 
Was Seasick ! " 

While the little young men smiled, approved and 
loudly applauded, the old ambassador to whom the in- 
terests of a people were entrusted, hummed in a low 
tone, amid the noise of the reception : 








4**%" ' ,^HpT aMp 






/ fnlvi' ‘11 

\ifi [d 




1 1 

^E^S&Ski « 









t 







» » 


PART SECOND 


457 


“ A oh ! aoh ! Je suis m tilde, 

Bien mellde\ Tres in elide 

Guy de Lissac shrugged his shoulders. He had heard 
a great deal of this man. This diplomat of the chan- 
sonnette evoked his pity. Where was he then? At 
Paris or at Brives-la-Gaillarde ? At a ball at the Hotel 
Beauvau or in some provincial sub-prefecture ? 

Just before, he had heard Warcolier utter this epic 
expression : 

“ If I were minister, I would give fireworks. They 
are warlike and inoffensive at the same time ! ” 

The voice of a young man with a Russian accent who 
talked politics in a corner, pleased him : 

“I am," he said aloud, “from a singular country: 
the Baltic provinces, where society is governed by dep- 
uties who, by birth, have the right to make laws, and I 
consider politics so tiresome, fatiguing and full of dis- 
gust and weariness as an occupation, that one ought to 
consider one’s self most fortunate that there are people 
condemned to take hold of this rancid pie, while others 
pass their lives in thinking, reading, talking and loving.” 

“That is good,” thought Lissac. “There is one, at 
least, who is not so stupid. It is true, perhaps because 
I think just the same.” 

Nevertheless, he went and listened, mixing with the 
crowd, haphazard. His preoccupation was not there. 
In reality, he thought only of Adrienne. How the poor 
woman must suffer ! 


458 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

With a feeling of physical and moral overthrow, she had 
left the threshold of the salon, where she had been stand- 
ing since the commencement of the soiree. She was 
mixing with the crowd in her desire to forget her sor- 
rows amid the deafening of the music, the songs, the 
laughter, and the murmur of the human billows that 
filled her salons. She had taken her place in front of 
the little improvised theatre, beside all those ladies who 
dissected her toilette, scanned her pallid face, analyzed 
and examined her piece by piece, body and soul. But 
there, seated near the stage, exactly in front of her, ex- 
posing, as in a stall, her blonde beauty, and radiant as a 
Titian, was that Marianne whose gleaming white shoulders 
appeared above her black satin corsage. Again she saw 
her, as but a little while before, unavoidable, haughty 
and bold, smiling with insolence. 

At every minute she was attracted by a movement of a 
head, or fan, or a laugh from this pretty creature, who 
leaned toward Sabine Marsy, then raised her brow and 
showed, in all the brilliancy of fatal beauty, her black cor- 
sage, striped with those fine red roses. And now Adrienne’s 
anger, the grief that she had trampled under for some 
hours, increased from moment to moment, heightened 
and stung by the sight of this creature, by all kinds of 
bitter thoughts and by visions of treason and baffled love. 
She felt that she was becoming literally mad at the 
thought that, upon those red and painted lips, Sulpice 
had rested his, that his hands had stroked those shoul- 


PART SECOND 


459 


ders, unwound that hair, that this woman’s body had 
been folded in his arms. Ah ! it was enough to make 
her rise and cry out to that creature : “ You are a wretch. 
Get you gone ! Get you gone, I say ! ” 

And if she did so? 

Why not? Had they the right to scorn her thus in 
public because she owned an official title and position? 
Was not this vulgar salon of a furnished mansion her salon 
then? 

Now it seemed to her that they were whispering about 
her; that they were sneering behind their fans, and 
that all these women knew her secret and her history. 

Why should they not know them? All Paris must 
have read that mocking, offensive and singular article : 
The Mistress of an Archon / All these people had, per- 
haps, learned it by heart. There were people here who 
frequented the salons and who probably kept the article 
in their pockets. 

Yes, that would be to commit a folly, to brave every- 
thing and to destroy all ! 

Sulpice, then, did not know her ; he believed her to 
be insignificant because she was gentle, resigned to 
everything because she was devoted to her love and her 
glory ? — Ah ! devoted even to the point of killing herself, 
devoted to the extent of dying, or living poor, working 
with her own hands, if only he loved her, if only he 
never lied to her. 

“ And here was his mistress 7 1 ” 


460 his excellency the minister 

His mistress ! His mistress ! 

She repeated this name with increasing rage, reiter- 
ating it, inwardly digesting it, as if it were something 
terribly bitter. His mistress, that lovely, insolent crea- 
ture ! Yes, very lovely, but manifestly terrible and capa- 
ble of driving a feeble being like Vaudrey to commit 
every folly, nay, worse, infamy. 

“ And it is such women that are loved ! Ah ! Idiots ! 
idiots that we are ! ” 

The first part of the concert was terminating. Hap- 
pily, too, for Adrienne was choking. The minister must, 
as a matter of politeness, express his thanks to the canta- 
trices from the Op£ra, and to the actresses from the 
Com^die Frangaise, the artistes whose names appeared 
on the programme. Vaudrey was obliged to pass the 
rows of chairs in order to reach the little salon behind 
the stage, which served as a foyer. Adrienne saw him 
coming to her side, and looking very pale, though he 
made an effort to smile. He was uncomfortable and 
anxious. In passing before Marianne, he tried to look 
aside, but Mademoiselle Kayser stopped him in spite 
of himself, by slightly extending her foot and smiling at 
him, when he turned toward her, with a prolonged, in- 
terested and strange expression. 

Adrienne felt that she was about to faint. She took 
a few tottering steps out of the salon, then she stopped 
as if her head were swimming. Some one was on 
hand to support her. She felt that a hand was hold- 


PART SECOND 461 

ing her arm, she heard some one whisper in her 
ear : 

“It is too much, is it not? ” 

She recognized Lissac’s voice. 

Guy looked at her for a moment, quite prepared for 
this great increase of suffering. 

“Take me away,” she murmured. “I can bear no 
more ! — I can bear no more ! ” 

She was longing to escape from all that noise, that at- 
mosphere that lacked air, and from Marianne’s look and 
smile that pierced her. She went, as if by chance, in- 
stinctively guiding Lissac, led by him to a little salon far 
from the reception rooms, and which was reserved for 
her and protected by a door guarded by an usher. It 
might have been thought that she expected this solitude 
would be necessary to her as an escape from the fright of 
that reception, to which her overstrained and sick nerves 
made her a prey. 

In passing, Lissac had whispered to Ramel, who was at 
his elbow : 

“ Tell Sulpice that Madame Vaudrey is ill ! ” 

« 111 ? ” 

“You see that she is ! ” 

When Adrienne was within the little salon hung with 
garnet silk draperies, in which the candelabras and 
sconces were lighted, she sank into an armchair, en- 
tirely exhausted and overwhelmed by the fearful resist- 
ance she had made to her feelings. She remained there 


462 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

motionless, her eye fixed, her face pale, and both hands 
resting on the arms of her chair, abstractedly looking at 
the pattern of the carpet. 

Guy stood near, biting his lips as he thought of the 
madman Vaudrey and that wretched Marianne. 

“She at least obeys her instincts ! But he ! ” 

“Ah ! it is too much; yes, it is too much ! ” repeated 
Adrienne, as if Lissac were again repeating that phrase. 

It seemed to her that she had been thrust into some 
cowardly situation; that she had been subjected to a 
shower of filth ! It was hideous, repugnant. She now 
saw, in the depths of her life, events that she had never 
before seen; her vision had suddenly become clear. 
Dark details she could now explain. Vaudrey’ s false- 
hoods were suddenly manifested. 

“ He lied ! Ah ! how he had lied ! ” 

She recalled his anxiety to hide the journals from her, 
his oft-repeated suggestions, his precautions, the increas- 
ing number .of his night-sessions that made him pale. 
Pale from debauchery ! And she pitied him ! She 
begged him not to kill himself for the politics that was 
eating his life. Again she saw on the lips of her Wednes- 
day’s guests the furtive smiles that were hidden behind 
muffs when she spoke of those nocturnal sessions of the 
Chamber, which were only nights passed in Marianne’s 
bed ! How those Parisians must have laughed at her 
and ridiculed the credulity of the woman who believes 
herself loved, but who is deceived and mocked at ! Ma- 


PART SECOND 463 

dame Gerson, Sabine ! How overjoyed they must have 
been when, in their salons, they referred to the little, 
stupid Provincial who was ignorant of these tricks ! 

She felt ridiculed and tortured, more tortured than 
baffled, for her vanity was nothing in comparison with 
her love, her poor, artless and trusting love ! 

“Sulpice, I should never have believed — Never ! — ” 

Why had they left Grenoble, their little house on the 
banks of the Isere ? They loved each other there, it 
was Paris that had snatched him away ! Paris ! She 
hated it now. She hated that reputation that had car- 
ried Vaudrey into office, the politics that had robbed her 
of a kind and loving husband, — for he had loved her, 
she was sure of that, — and which had made him the 
lover of a courtesan, the liar and coward that he was ! 

“ Do you see ? ” she said to Lissac suddenly. “ I 
detest these walls ! ” 

She pointed to the gilded ceilings with an angry 
gesture. 

“ Since I entered here, my life has come to a close ! — 
It is that, that which has taken him from me ! — Ah ! 
this society, this politics, these meannesses, this life ex- 
posed to every one and everything, to temptation and to 
fall, I am entirely sick of, I am disgusted with. Let me 
be snatched from it, let me be taken away ! Everywhere 
here, one might say, there is an atmosphere of lying ! ” 

“Do you hear? She laughs,, she . is happy L She! 
And I, ah ! I ! ” 


464 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

She had risen to her feet, suddenly recovering all her 
energy, as if stirred by the air of a Hungarian dance, 
whose strains dimly reached them from the distant, warm 
salons, where Marianne was disporting her beauty — 

“ Ah ! this hotel, the noise and the women ! ” said 
Adrienne, “ I hate. This horde ranged about the buffet ; 
this salon turned into a restaurant, the false salutations, 
the commonplace protestations, this society, all this 
society, I detest it ! — I will have no more of it ! — It 
seems to me that all that is mocking me and that its 
smiles are only for that courtesan ! — But if I had driven 
her out ? Who brought her ? ” 

“ Her uncle and Monsieur de Rosas ! ” 

“ Monsieur de Rosas ? ” 

“ Who marries her ! ” 

Adrienne nervously uttered a loud, harsh laugh, as 
painful as if it were caused by a spasm. 

“ Who marries her ! Then these creatures are mar- 
ried ? — Ah ! they are married — They are honored, too, 
are they not ? And because they are more easy of 
approach, they are thought more beautiful and more 
agreeable than those who are merely honest wives ? Ah ! 
it is too silly ! — Rosas ! I took him for a man of 
sense ! — If I were to tell him myself that she is my hus- 
band’s mistress, what would the duke answer?” 

“ He would not believe you, and you would not do 
that, madame ! ” said Lissac. 

“Why?” 


PART SECOND 465 

“ Because it would be an act of cowardice, and be- 
cause you are the best, the noblest of women ! ” 

Instinctively he drew near her, lowering his voice, em- 
bracing with his glance that fine, charming beauty, that 
grief heightened by a burning brilliancy. 

She raised her fine, clear eyes to Lissac, whose look 
troubled her, and said : 

“And how have these served me? — Kindness, 
trickery ! — Trickery, chastity ! — Ask all these men ! 
All of them will go to Mademoiselle Kayser and not to 
me!” 

“To you, madame,” murmured Guy, “all that there 
is of devotion and earnestness, yes, all of the tenderest 
and the truest will go to you as respectful homage.” 

“Respect? — Yes, respect to us! — And with it goes 
the home ! But to her ! Ah ! to her, love ! And 
what if I wish to be loved myself ? ” 

“ Loved by him ! ” said Lissac in a low tone, as if he 
did not know what he said ; and his hands instinctively 
sought Adrienne’s. They trembled. 

A woman’s perfume and something like the keen 
odor of flowers assailed his nostrils. He had never felt 
the impulse of burning compassion which at a sign from 
this saint, would have driven him to attempt the impos- 
sible, to affront the noisy throng yonder. 

“ Loved by him, yes, by him ! ” answered Adrienne, 
with the mournful shake of the head of one who sees her 
joy vanish in the distance like a sinking bark. 

30 


466 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

She had been so happy ! She had thought herself so 
dearly loved ! Ah ! those many cowardly lies uttered 
by Sulpice ! 

“Do not speak to me of him ! ” she suddenly said. 
“ I hate him, too ! — I do more than that ! I despise 
him ! I never wish to see him again ! — never. You 
hear! never ! ” 

“ What will you do ? ” Lissac asked. 

“ I know nothing about it !— I wish to leave ! Now, 
I have no more parading to make in this ball, I think, 
I have no longer to receive the guests whose insulting 
smiles were like blows ! I will go, go ! ” 

“ Adrienne ! ” 

“ Will go at once ! ” 

She felt no astonishment at hearing the name Adrienne 
spoken suddenly and unreflectingly by Guy de Lissac. 

She looked at him with a glance that reached his soul, 
not knowing what she said : 

“ Leave now ! While the ball is in progress. To leave 
solitude to him, suddenly — here ! And that woman, 
if he wishes, her, and if the other who is marrying her 
will yield her to him ! ” 

She was carried away, her mind wandered, as if un- 
balanced by her grief, all her efforts at self-control end- 
ing in a relaxation qf her strained- nerves. 

“ I will leave !^I do not wish to see him again,! ” 
Leave to-night? ” 

“For Grenoble— J_ don’t know, where ! — -But to fly 


PART SECOND 467 

from him ; ah ! yes ; to escape from him ! Take me 
away, Monsieur de Lissac ! ” she said distractedly, as she 
seized his hand. “ I should go mad here ! ” 

She had unconsciously taken refuge, as it were, in the 
arms of the man who loved her, and Lissac felt the ex- 
quisite grace of the body abandoned to him, without the 
woman’s reflecting upon it, without loving him, lost — 

It is quite certain that in her nervous, heart-broken 
condition, Adrienne was not considering whether his 
affection for her sprung from friendship or from love. 

For a moment this master skeptic, Guy, felt that he 
was committing the greatest folly of his life. 

The young woman did not understand ; nevertheless, 
even without love, he clearly felt that this chasteness 
and grace, all that there was exquisitely seductive about 
her, belonged to him — if he dared — 

“You are feverish, Adrienne,” he said, as he took 
her hands as he would a child’s. 

“I am choking here! — I wish to leave! — take me 
away ! ” 

“ Nonsense,” said Lissac. “ What are you thinking 
about? They are calling for you, yonder.” 

“ It is because they call for me that I wish to escape. 
Don’t you see that I abhor all those people; that I de- 
test them as much as I despise them ? Take me away ! ” 
Lissac had become very pale. He tried to smile at 
Adrienne — the heroic smile of a wounded man under- 
going amputation — and he whispered : „ 


468 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ Don’t you know very well, madame, that you would 
not have taken two steps in the street, on my arm, be- 
fore you would become a lost woman? ” 

“Well,” she said, “what of that, since it is they who 
are loved ! — ” 

“ No, madame,” Guy replied, “ I love you. I may 
say so, because you are a virtuous woman, and I have no 
right to take you away, do you understand ? because I 
love you.” 

He, too, had summoned all his strength to impart to 
his confession, which he would have expressed with 
ardor, the cold tone of a phrase. 

But that was enough. Adrienne recoiled before this 
avowal. 

He loved her. He told her so ! 

It is true, she could not leave the mansion on his 
arm. 

She rested her glance on Lissac and extended her 
hand to him, saying, as she felt suddenly recalled to 
herself : 

“ You are an honest man ! ” 

“ According to my moods,” said Guy, with a sad smile. 

The door of the little salon opened, and Ramel en- 
tered. 

“ I have called in a doctor,” he said. 

“ For me ? ” asked Adrienne. “ Thanks ! I am quite 
strong ! ” 

Then boldly going to Ramel : 


PART SECOND 469 

“ Will you have the goodness to take me to Rue de la 
Chauss^e-d’Antin, Monsieur Ramel?” 

“ Why? ” 

“ Because I will not remain one hour longer in a house 
where my husband has the right to receive his mistress ! — 
Monsieur de Lissac refuses to accompany me. Your 
arm, Ramel ! ” 

“ Madame,” Ramel answered gently, “ I knew that 
Monsieur de Lissac was a man of intelligence. It seems 
to me that he is a man of heart. You should remain here 
for your own sake, for your name’s sake, for your hus- 
band’s. It is your duty. As to Mademoiselle Kayser, 
you can return to the salons, for she has just left with 
Monsieur de Rosas.” 

Adrienne remained for a moment with her sad eyes 
fixed on Ramel ; then shaking her head : 

“ You knew it also ? Everybody knew it then, except 
me?” 

“Well!” said Ramel, a good-natured smile playing 
in his white mustache, “ now it is necessary to forget.” 

“ Never 1 ” replied Adrienne. 

Then proudly drawing herself up, she took Denis’s arm 
and without even glancing in her mirror, she went off 
toward the salons. 

“ Your bouquet, madame,” said Lissac, who was still 
pale and his voice trembled. 

“ True ! ” said Adrienne. 

She fastened her bouquet of drooping roses to her 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


47 ° 

corsage and without daring to look at Lissac again, she 
re-entered, leaning on Ramel’s arm. 

Left alone in the salon, Guy remained a moment to 
shake his head. 

“ Poor, dear creature ! ” he said. “ If I had been 
young enough not to understand the position in which 
her madness placed me, or base enough to profit by it, 
what a pretty little preface to a great folly she was about 
to commit this evening ! Well ! this attack of morality 
will perhaps count in my favor some day.” 

He stooped down and picked up a rose that had fallen 
from Adrienne’s bouquet to the carpet. 

He smiled as he took up the flower and looked at it. 

“ One learns at any age ! ” he thought, as he put the 
flower in his coat. “ That, at least, is a love souvenir 
that they will not send the police to rob me of.” 


VII 

On rising the following morning, after a feverish night, 
Sulpice realized a feeling of absolute moral destruction. 
It seemed to him that he had lost a dear being. In that 
huge, silent hotel one would have thought that a corpse 
was lying. He did not dare to present himself to 
Adrienne. He could not tell what to say to her. He 
went downstairs slowly, crossing the salons that were 
still decorated with the now fading flowers, to reach his 


PART SECOND 


47 1 

cabinet. The carpet was littered with the broken leaves 
of dracaenas and petals that had fallen from the azaleas, 
and presented the gloomy, forsaken aspect peculiar to 
the morrow of a fete. The furniture, stripped of its 
coverings, offered the faded tint of old maids at their 
rising. With heavy head, he sat at his desk and looked 
at the piled-up documents with a vague expression. 
Always the eternal pile of despatches, optimistic reports, 
and banal summaries of the daily press. Nothing new, 
nothing interesting, all was going well. This tired world 
had no history. 

The minister still remained there, absorbed as after 
an unhealthy insomnia, when Warcolier entered, ever 
serious, with his splendid, redundant phrases and his 
usual attitude of a pedantic rhetor. He came to inform 
the minister that a matter of importance, perhaps of 
a troublesome nature, loomed on the horizon. Granet 
was preparing an interpellation. Oh ! upon a matter 
without any real importance. An affair of a procession 
that had taken place at Tarbes, accompanied by some 
little disturbance. It was only a pretext, but it was 
sufficient, perhaps, to rally a majority around the minister 
of io-morrow. Old Henri de Prangins, with his eye on 
a portfolio, and always thirsting for power, was keeping 
Granet company : the man who would never be a min- 
ister with the man who was sure to be. 

“ Well, what has this to do with me? ” asked Vaudrey 
indifferently. 


47 2 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


Granet ! Prangins ! He was thinking of a very different 
matter. Adrienne knew all and Marianne deceived him. 
She was to marry Rosas. 

The very serious Warcolier manifested much surprise 
at the little energy displayed by Monsieur le Ministre. 
He expected to see him bound, in order to rebound, as 
he said, believing himself witty. Was Vaudrey himself 
giving up the game? Was Granet then sure of the 
game? He surmised it and had already taken the nec- 
essary measures in that direction. But surely if Granet 
were the rising sun, Vaudrey was himself abandoning his 
character of the setting sun. He was not setting, he 
was falling. A sovereign contempt for this man entered 
Warcolier’s lofty soul, Warcolier the friend of suc- 
cess. 

“Then you do not understand, Monsieur le Presi- 
dent?” 

Vaudrey drew himself up with a sudden movement 
that was frequent with him. He struck the table on 
which his open portfolio rested, and said : 

“ I understand that Granet wants that portfolio ! Well, 
be it so ! I set little store by it, but he does not have 
it yet ! ” 

“ That is something like it ! It is worthy of a brave 
man to show a resolute front to his enemies ! It is in 
battle that talent is retempered, as formerly in the Styx 
were tempered — ” 

" I know,” said Sulpice. 


PART SECOND 


473 

Warcolier’s intelligent smile was not understood by 
the minister. 

Sulpice, who was in despair over his shattered domestic 
joys, had no wish to enter on a struggle except to 
bring about a reaction on himself. To hold his own 
against Granet, was to divert his own present sad- 
ness. 

“ All right,” he said to Warcolier. “ Let Granet in- 
terpellate us when he pleases — In eight days, to-morrow, 
yes, to-day even, I am ready ! ” 

“ Interpellate us ! ” thought Warcolier. “ You should 
say, interpellate you .” 

He had already got out of the scrape himself. 

Vaudrey debated with himself as to whether he would 
try to see Adrienne. No? What should he say to her? 
It would be better to let a little time shed its balm upon 
the wound. Then, too, if he wished to bar the way to 
Granet, he had not too much time before him. The 
shrewd person should act promptly. 

“ I shall see him on the Budget Committee ! ” thought 
Vaudrey. 

He found it necessary now to force an interest in the 
struggle which a few months before would have found 
him eagerly panting to enter on. The honeymoon of 
his love of power had passed. He had too keenly felt, 
one after another, the discouragements of the office that 
he sought in order to do good \ to reform, to act, in the 
pursuit of which he found himself, from the first moment, 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


474 

clashing with routine, old-fashioned ideas, petty ambi- 
tions, the general welfare, all the brood of selfish in- 
terests. It had been his to dream a sort of Chimera 
bearing the country toward Progress on outstretched 
wings: he found himself entangled in the musty mech- 
anism of a worn-out and rancid-smelling engine, that 
dragged the State as a broken-winded horse might have 
done. Then, little by little, weariness and disgust had 
penetrated the heart of this visionary who desired to live, 
to assert himself in putting an end to so many abuses, 
and whom his colleagues, his chiefs of division, his 
chief of service, the chief of the State himself cau- 
tiously advised : “ Make no innovations ! Let things 
go ! That has gone on so for so long ! What is the 
use of changing? It will still do very well ! ” 

Ah ! it was to throw off the shackles and to try the 
impossible ! Vaudrey found himself hemmed in be- 
tween his dearest hopes and the most disheartening real- 
ities. He was asked for offices, not reforms. The men 
charged with the fate of the country were not struggling 
after progress, they were looking after their own interests, 
their landed and shopkeeping interests. He felt nau- 
seated by all this. He held those deputies in contempt 
who besieged his cabinet and filled his antechamber in 
order to beg, claim and demand. All of them sought 
something, and they were almost strangled by the solic- 
itations of their own constituents. They appeared to Sul- 
pice to be rather the commissionaires of universal suffrage 


PART SECOND 


475 

than the servants. This abasement before the manipula- 
tors of the votes made Vaudrey indignant. He felt that 
France was becoming by degrees a vast market for 
favors, a nation in which everyone asked office from those 
who to keep their own promised everything, and the 
thought filled him with terror. The ministers, wedded 
to their positions, became the mere servants of the 
deputies, while the latter obeyed the orders of their con- 
stituents. All was kept within a vast network of office- 
seeking and trafficking. And with it all, a hatred of 
genuine talent, bitter selfishness and the crushing nar- 
rowness of ideas ! 

Vaudrey recalled a story that had been told him, how 
during the Empire, the Emperor terrified, feeling him- 
self isolated, asked and searched for a man, and how a 
certain little bell in the Tuileries was especially provided 
to warn the chamberlains of the entry into the chateau 
of a new face, of the visit of a stranger, in order that the 
camarilla, warned by the particular ring, would have time 
to place themselves on their guard, and to send the new- 
comer to the right about if he might become an aid to 
the master and a danger to the servants. Well ! Sulpice 
did not hear that invisible and secret bell, but he guessed 
its presence, he divined its presence around him, warn- 
ing the interested, always ready to chase away the 
stranger ; he felt that its secret thread was everywhere 
thrown around the powerful, the mighty of four days or 
a quarter of a century and that, so long as influence 


476 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

existed in the world, there would be courtiers and that 
these courtiers, eager for a crumb, would prevent the 
stranger, that is to say, truth, from reaching the light, 
fearing that this stranger might play the part of the lion 
and chase the flies away from the honeycomb. 

Thus how much nausea and contempt he felt for that 
transient power which in spite of himself was rendered 
useless. A power that placed him at the mercy of the 
bawling of a colleague or an enemy, and even at the 
mercy of that all-powerful master so readily dissatisfied : 
everybody. He had seen, at too close quarters, the vile 
intrigues, the depressing chafferings, the grinding of that 
political kitchen in which so many people, — this War- 
colier with his voluble rhetoric, this Granet with his con- 
ceited smile of superiority, — were hungering to hold the 
handle of the saucepan. He recalled a remark that 
Denis Ramel had often repeated to him : “ What is the 
use of putting one’s self out in order to bask in the sun- 
shine? The best are in the shade.” 

He was seized with lawful indignation against his own 
ambitions, against the lack of energy that prevented him 
from sweeping away all obstacles, — men, and routine, — 
and he recalled with afflicting bitterness his entry on 
public life, in the blaze of divine light, and his dreams, 
his poor noble dreams ! “ A great minister ! I will be 

a great minister S ” 

“Ah ! yes, indeed ! one is a minister, that is all ! 
And that is enough ! It is often too much ! We shall 


PART SECOND 


477 

see indeed what he will do, that Granet who ought to do 
so much ! ” 

Vaudrey laughed nervously. 

“ What he will do ? Nothing ! Nothing ! Still 
nothing ! That is very easy ! To do anything, one 
should be a great man and not a politician captivated 
with the idea of reaching the summit of power. Ah ! 
parbleu / to be a great man ! 4 That is the question.’ ” 

He grew very excited over the proud rebellion of his 
old faith and shattered hopes against the negative suc- 
cess he had obtained. Besides, there was no reason for 
giving up the struggle. There was a council to be held 
at the Elysee. He went there, but at this moment of 
disgust, disgust of everything and himself, this palace 
like all the rest, seemed to him to be gloomy and mean. 
An usher in black coat and white cravat, wearing a chain 
around his neck, wandered up and down the antecham- 
ber, according to custom, his shoes covered with the 
dust from the carpet trodden upon by so many people, 
either applicants or functionaries. The gaslight burning 
in broad day as in the offices in London was reflected on 
the cold walls that shone like marble. Doors orna- 
mented with gilt nails and round, ivory knobs and with- 
out locks, were noiselessly swinging to and fro. Wearied 
office-seekers with tired countenances were spread out 
upon the garnet-colored velvet chairs, which were like 
those of a middle-class, furnished house. 

From time to time, the tiresome silence was broken 


47 8 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

by the sound of near or distant electric bells. Vaudrey, 
who arrived before his colleagues, studiously contem- 
plated the surroundings ironically. An estafette, a gen- 
darme, arrived with a telegram ; the usher signed a re- 
ceipt for it. That was all the life that animated this 
silent palace. A man with a military air, tall, handsome 
and in tightly-buttoned frock-coat, passed and saluted 
the President of the Council; then, Jouvenet, the Pre- 
fect of Police, looking like a notary’s senior clerk, his 
abundant black hair plastered on his head, a large, black 
portfolio under his arm, approached the minister and 
bowed. Vaudrey, having Lissac in mind, returned his 
salutation coldly. 

“ I will speak to you presently, Monsieur le Pr£fet.” 

“ Good ! Monsieur le Ministre ! ” 

In spite of the foot-soldier and the Parisian guard on 
duty at the door of the palace, all that now seemed to 
Vaudrey to lack official solemnity, and resembled rather 
a temporary and melancholy occupation. 

“ Bah ! And if I should never set my foot in this place 
again,” he thought, as he remembered Granet’s inter- 
pellation, “ what would it matter to me? ” 

He was informed first at the Council and then at the 
Chamber, that Granet would not introduce his question 
until the next day. Vaudrey had the desired time to 
prepare himself. In the Budget Committee, where he 
met Granet, the minister of to-morrow asked him an 
inopportune question concerning the expenses of -the ad- 


PART SECOND 


479 

ministration. Vaudrey was angered and felt inclined to 
treat it as a personal question. It now only remained 
for his adversaries to begin to suspect him ! To appear 
so was even now too much. Sulpice took Granet up 
promptly, the latter assured him that “ his colleague and 
friend, the President of the Council,” had entirely mis- 
construed the meaning of his words. 

“Well and good,” said Vaudrey. 

He was not sorry that the interpellation was not to 
take place ^t once. Before to-morrow, he would have 
placed his batteries. And then he would think of quiet- 
ing Adrienne, of regaining her, perhaps. On returning 
to the ministry, he caused some inquiries to be made as 
to whether Madame were not sick. Madame had gone 
out. She had gone out as if she were making a pilgrim- 
age to a cemetery, to the apartment in Rue de la Chaus- 
s^e-d’Antin, whereon might have been written : Here lies. 
It was like the tomb of her happiness. 

She would not see Sulpice again. In the evening, 
however, she consented to speak to him. 

Her poor, gentle face was extremely pale, and as if 
distorted by some violent pain. 

“ You will find some excuse,” she said, “ for announc- 
ing that I am ill. I am leaving for Grenoble. I have 
written da my uncle, the Doctor, expects me, and all that 
now remains to me is a place in his house.” .• - 

“Adrienne ! ” murmured Sulpice. : 

She closed her eyes, for this suppliant voice doubtless 


4 8o HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

caused her a new grief, but neither gesture nor word escaped 
her. She was like a walking automaton. Even her eyes 
expressed neither reproach nor anger, they seemed dim. 

There was something of death in her aspect. 

After a few moments, she said : “ I hope that my re- 
solve will not work any prejudice to your political posi- 
tion. In that direction I will still do my duty to the 
full extent of my strength. But people will not trouble 
themselves to inquire whether I am at Grenoble or Paris. 
They trouble themselves very little about me.” 

By a gesture, he sought to retain her. She had already 
entered her room, and Vaudrey felt that between this 
woman and him there stood something like a wall. He 
had now only to love Marianne. 

To love Marianne, ah ! yes, the unhappy man, he still 
loved her. When he thought of Marianne, it was more 
in wrath, when he thought of Adrienne, it was more in 
pity; but, certainly, his wife’s determination to leave 
Paris caused him less emotion than the thought that his 
mistress was to wed Rosas. 

That very evening he went to Marianne’s. 

They told him that Madame was at the theatre. 
Where? With whom? Neither Jean nor Justine knew. 

Vaudrey despised himself for jealously questioning the 
servants who, when together, would burst with laughter 
in speaking of him. 

“ Oh ! miserable fool ! ” he said to himself. “ There 
was only one woman who loved you : — Adrienne ! ” 


PART SECOND 481 

Nevertheless, he recalled Marianne in the hours of 
past love, and the recollection of her kisses and sobs 
still made his flesh creep. The tawny tints that 
played in her hair as it strayed unfastened over the 
pillow, the endearing caresses of her bare arms, he 
wished to see and feel again. He calculated in his 
ferocious egotism that Adrienne's wrath would afford 
him more complete liberty for a time, and that he 
would have Marianne more to himself, if she were will- 
ing. 

He had written to Mademoiselle Kayser, but his letter 
had remained unanswered. He thought that he would 
go to Mademoiselle Vanda’s house the next day, after 
the Chamber was up. Very late, he added, since the 
sitting would be prolonged. Long and decisive, as the 
fate of his ministry was at stake. 

Granefs interpellation did not make him unusually 
uneasy. He had acquainted himself in the morning with 
a r£sum£ of the journals. Public opinion seemed favor- 
able to the Vaudrey ministry, except in the case of some 
insufferable radical organs , and with which he need not in 
anyway concern himself \ read the report. Vaudrey did 
not remember that it was in almost these very terms that 
the daily resume of the press expressed itself on the eve 
of Pichereau's fall, to the Minister of the Interior, in 
speaking of Pichereau’s cabinet. 

“ I shall have a majority of sixty votes,” he said to 
himself. " Everything will be carried — save honor ! ” 

3 1 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


482 

He thought of Adrienne as he thus wished. 

The session of the Chamber was to furnish him the 
most cruel deception. Granet had most skilfully pre- 
pared his plan of attack. Vaudrey’s ministry was threat- 
ened on all sides by lines of approach laid out without 
Sulpice’s knowledge. Granet had promised, here and 
there, new situations, or had undertaken to confirm the 
old. He came to the assault of the ministry with a com- 
pact battalion of clients entirely devoted to his fortunes, 
which were their own. They did not reproach Vaudrey 
too strongly with anything, unless it was that these impa- 
tient ones considered that he had given away all that he 
had to give, prefectures, sub-prefectures, councillors’ ap- 
pointments, crosses of the Legion of Honor, and espe- 
cially for having lasted too long. Vaudrey would fall 
less because he had forfeited esteem than because others 
were impatient to succeed him. Granet was tired of 
being only the minister of to-morrow , he wished to have 
his day. He had just affirmed his policy, he asserted 
that the whole country, weary of Vaudrey’s compromises, 
demanded a more homogeneous ministry. Homo- 
geneity ! Nothing could be said against such a word. 
Granet favored the policy of homogeneity. This vocable 
comprehended his entire programme. The Vaudrey 
Cabinet lacked homogeneity ! The President of the 
Republic decidedly ought to form a homogeneous 
cabinet. 

“ Granet is then homogeneous? ” said Sulpice, with a 


PART SECOND 483 

forced laugh, as he sat on the ministerial bench while 
Lucien Granet was speaking from the tribune, his right 
hand thrust into his frock-coat. 

The bon mot uttered by the President of the Council, 
although spoken loudly enough, did not enliven any one, 
neither his colleagues who felt themselves threatened nor 
his usual claqueurs who felt themselves vanquished. Na- 
varrot, the ministerial claqueur, was already applauding 
Granet most enthusiastically. Monsieur le Ministre felt 
himself about to become an ex-minister. He vaguely 
felt as if he were in the vacuum of an air-pump. 

The order of the day of distrust, smoothed over by 
Granet with the formulas of perfidious politeness — 
castor-oil in orange-juice, as Sulpice himself called it, 
trying to pluck up courage and wit in the face of misfor- 
tune, — that order of the day that the Vaudrey Cabinet 
would not accept, was adopted by a considerable 
majority : one hundred and twenty-two votes. 

For Sulpice, it was a crushing defeat. 

“One hundred and twenty-two deputies,” he said, 
still speaking in a loud voice in the corridors, “ to whom 
I have refused the appointment of some mayor or the 
removal of some rural guard ! ” 

Warcolier, ever dignified, remarked in his usual style, 
that this manner of defending himself probably lacked 
some of that nobility which becomes a defeat bravely 
endured. 

Vaudrey had only one course open, to send in his 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


484 

resignation. He was beaten, thoroughly beaten. He 
returned to the Hotel Beauvau and after preparing his 
letter he took it himself to the President at the Elys£e. 

The President accepted it without betraying any 
feeling, as an employd at the registry office receives any 
deed of declaration. Two or three commonplace ex- 
pressions of regret, a diplomatic shake of the hand, 
expressive of official sympathy, that was all. Vaudrey 
returned to the ministry and ordered his servants to pre- 
pare everything for leaving the ministerial mansion. 

“When is that to be, Monsieur le Ministre?” 

“To-morrow,” answered Vaudrey, to whom the title 
seemed ironical and grated on his nerves. 

He caused himself to be announced to Adrienne. 

Adrienne, weary looking, was seated before a small 
desk writing, and beneath her fair hair, her face still 
looked as white as that of a corpse. 

“There is some news,” Vaudrey said to her abruptly. 
“ I am no longer minister ! ” 

“ Ah ! ” f she said. 

Not a tremor, not a word of consolation. Three days 
previously, she would have leaped to his neck and said : 
“ How happy we shall be ! I have you back y I have 
found you again ! What joy ! ” 

Again, she would have tried to console him had he 
been suffering. 

Now, she remained passive, frozen, indifferent to that 


news. 


PART SECOND 485 

“We shall leave the Hotel Beauvau ! ” said Sulpice. 

“ I am already preparing to leave,” she replied. “ My 
trunks are packed.” 

“ Will you do me the kindness of leaving here with me 
and of going back to Rue de la Chauss^e-d’Antin with 
me ? — After that, you can set out at once for Grenoble. 
But let us have no sign of scandal. The world must be 
considered.” 

She had listened to him coldly, unmoved by his 
trembling voice. 

“That is proper,” she said ironically. “The world 
must be thought of. I will wait then before leaving.” 

He was stupefied to find so much coldness and so 
unswerving a determination in this woman, as gentle as a 
child — my wife-child ’ he so frequently said to her of old. 
In her presence he felt ill at ease, discontented, hesitat- 
ing whether he should throw himself at her feet and 
wring pardon from her, or fly from her and be with 
Marianne, perhaps forever. But no, it was Adrienne, 
his poor, his dear Adrienne that he would keep and love ! 
Ah ! if she pardoned him, if he had dared to kneel at 
her feet, to plead and to weep ! But this living corpse 
froze him, he was afraid of her, of that gentle and 
devoted creature. 

He went downstairs again, saying to himself that he 
would take a hurried dinner and then go to Rue Prony. 

He was, however, obliged to occupy himself in 
despatching the last current business. He must hand 


486 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

over his official duties to his successor. There was a 
mocking expression in these words : his successor / 

“ After all, he will have one also ! ” 

He still had unexpected heartbreakings to experience. 
People to whom he had promised appointments and 
decorations came, almost breathless, suddenly stirred by 
the news, to entreat him to sign the nominations and to 
prepare the decrees while he was still minister. The 
ravens were about the corpse. Monsieur Eugene , still 
bowing low, although not quite so low as heretofore, en- 
deavored to dismember Vaudrey the Minister. He 
wanted a little piece, only one piece ! A sub-prefecture 
of the third class ! 

He had already been informed at the Elys£e that 
Granet was to be his successor. Parbleu ! he expected 
it ! But the realization of his fears annoyed him. And 
who would Granet keep for his Secretary of State? 
Warcolier, yes Warcolier, with the promise of giving him 
the first vacant portfolio. 

“How correct was Ramel’s judgment?” thought 
Sulpice. 

Vaudrey, with a sort of rage urging him, immediately 
set himself about a task as mournful as a funeral : pack- 
ing up. It now seemed to him that he had just suffered 
a total overthrow. Books and papers were being packed 
in baskets. Before he was certain of his fall, he thought 
it was delightful to escape from so much daily bother, 
but now he felt as if he were being discrowned and 


PART SECOND 487 

mined. Ruin ! It truly threatened him indeed and 
held him by the throat. He had realized on many 
pieces of property within the past year for Marianne ! 

Adrienne, on the contrary, left this great cold hotel of 
Place Beauvau, as if she were leaving a prison, with a 
comforting sense of deliverance. A bad dream was 
ended. She could lay down her official mask, weep at 
ease, complain at will, fly to that Dauphiny where her 
youth was left. She would leave to-morrow. Doctor 
Reboux awaited her in ignorance. 

After having given his first orders and arranged his 
most important documents, Sulpice went out to walk to 
Marianne’s. At first he wandered along mechanically 
without realizing that he was going toward the quays, 
almost fearing the interview with his mistress, now that 
he was only a defeated man. He had nearly reached the 
Seine before he was aware of it. He looked at his 
watch. 

Eleven o’clock. 

Marianne had been awaiting him for some time. 

He now followed, with the slow march of persons 
oppressed with a sense of weariness, these deserted quays, 
that terrace on the bank of the river, whose balustrades 
permitted glimpses of the silhouettes of slender trees. 
He met no one. Upon the Place de la Concorde, still 
wet with the scarce dried rain of this November night, 
as mild as an evening in spring, permeated by a warm 
mist, he looked for a moment at the Palace of the Corps 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


488 

L^gislatif, gloomy-Iooking arid outlining its roofs against 
the misty sky, whose gleams fell on the horizon with 
a bluish tint, while upon the broad sidewalks, the jets 
of gas magnified the reddened reflections with their 
own ruddy hues. Along the grand avenue of the 
Champs-Elys£es there were only two immense parallel 
rows of gas-lamps and here and there, moving, lumi- 
nous points that looked like glow-worms. Vaudrey 
mechanically stopped a moment to contemplate the scene. 

That did not interest him, but something within him 
controlled him. He continued to walk unwittingly in 
the direction of Parc Monceau. The solitude of the 
Champs-Elys6es pleased him. While passing before an 
important club with its windows lighted, he instinctively 
shuddered. Through the lace-like branches of the trees, 
he looked at the green shades, the lustres, the unpolished 
sconces, with the backgrounds of red and gold hangings, 
and the great, gold frames, and he imagined that they 
were discussing the causes of his defeat and the success 
of Granet. 

“ They are speaking of me, in there ! They are talk- 
ing about my fall ! He is fallen ! Fallen ! Beaten ! 
— They are laughing, they are making jokes ! There 
are some there who yesterday were asking me for 
places.” 

He continued on his way without quickening his pace ; 
the deserted cafd concerts, as melancholy-looking as 
empty stages, the wreaths of suspended pearl-like lamps 


PART SECOND 489 

illuminated during the summer months but now color- 
less, seemed ironical amid the clumps of bare trees as 
gloomy as cemetery yews, exhaling a sinister, forsaken 
spirit as if this solitude were full of extinct songs, 
defunct graces, phantoms, and last year’s mirth. And 
Vaudrey felt a strangely delicious sensation even in his 
bitterness at this impression of solitude, as if he might 
have been lost, forgotten forever, in the very emptiness 
of this silent corner. 

Going on, he passed before the &lys£e. 

A sergent de ville who was slowly pacing up and down 
in front of an empty sentry-box, his two hands ensconced 
in the sleeves of his coat, the hood of which he had 
turned up, cast a sidelong glance at him, almost suspi- 
ciously, as if wondering what a prowler could want to do 
there, at such an hour. 

“ He does not know whom he has looked at,” he said. 
“ And yesterday, only yesterday, he would have saluted 
me subserviently ! ” 

The windows of the £lys£e facing the street were still 
lighted up and Vaudrey thought that shadows were mov- 
ing behind the white curtains. 

“ The President has not yet retired ! He has prob- 
ably received Granet ! And Warcolier ! — Warcolier I ” 

Before the large door opening on Faubourg Saint- 
Honor6, four lamps were burning over the head of a 
Parisian guard on duty, with his musket on his shoulder, 
the light shining on the leather of his shako. Some 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


490 

weary-looking guardians of the peace were chatting 
together. At the end of the court before the perron, 
a small, red carpet was laid upon the steps and in front 
of the marquee faint lights gleamed. Vaudrey recalled 
that joyous morning when he entered there, arriving 
and descending from his carriage with his portfolio under 
his arm. 

He hurried his steps and found himself on Place 
Beauvau. His glance was attracted by the grille, the 
hotel, the grand court at the end of the avenue. Sulpice 
experienced a feeling of sudden anger as he passed in 
front of the Ministry of the Interior whose high grille, 
now closed, he had many times passed through, leaning 
back in his coup£. He pictured himself entering there, 
where he would never again return except as a place- 
seeker like those eternal beggars who blocked its ante- 
chambers. He still heard the cry of the lackey when 
the coachman crushed the sand of the courtyard under 
the wheels of the carriage : “ Monsieur le Ministre’s car- 
riage ! ” — He went upstairs, the lackeys saluted him, the 
coup£ rolled off toward the Bois. 

Now, here in that vulgar mansion another was dis- 
playing himself, seated on the same seats, eating at the 
same table, sleeping in the same bed and giving his 
orders to the same servants. He experienced a strange 
sensation, as of a theft, of some undue influence, of suf- 
fering an ejectment by a stranger from some personal 
property, and this Granet, the man sent there as he had 


PART SECOND 


49 1 

been, by a vote, seemed to him to be a smart fellow, a 
filibuster and an intruder. 

“How one becomes accustomed to thinking one’s 
self at home everywhere!” thought Vaudrey. 

He partially forgot the keen wound given to his self- 
love by the time that he found himself close to Parc 
Monceau approaching Rue Prony. In Marianne’s win- 
dows the lights were shining. To see that woman and 
hold her again in his arms, overjoyed, that happiness 
would console him for all his mortifications. Marianne’s 
love was worth a hundred times more than the delights 
of power. 

Marianne Kayser was evidently waiting for Sulpice. 
She received him in her little, brilliantly-lighted salon, 
superb amid these lights, in a red satin robe de chambre 
that lent a strange seductiveness to her bare arms and 
neck which shone with a pale and pearly lustre beneath 
the light. 

Vaudrey felt infinitely moved, almost painfully though 
deliciously stirred, as he always did when in the presence 
of this lovely creature. 

She extended her hand to him, saying in a singular 
tone that astonished him : 

" Bonjour , vous / ” 

“ Well ! ” she said at once, pointing to a journal 
which was lying on the carpet, “is there any thing new ? ” 

“Yes,” he said. “ But what is that to me? I don’t 
think of that when I am near you ! ” 


49 2 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ Oh ! besides, my dear,” Marianne continued, “ your 
darling sin has not been to think of two things at one 
time ! I don’t understand anything of politics, it 
bothers me. I have been advised, however, that you 
have been thrashed by that Granet ! ” 

“ Thrashed, yes,” said Sulpice, laughing, “ you use 
peculiar phrases ! — ” 

“ Topical ones. I am of the times ! But it appears 
that one must read the journals to learn about you. I 
am going to tell you some news however, before it ap- 
pears in print.” 

“ That interests me?” 

“ Perhaps, but it most assuredly interests me!” 

“ Important news? ” asked Sulpice. 

“ Important or great, as you will ! ” 

He nibbled his blond moustache nervously. 

Guy had not deceived him. 

“ Then I think I know your news, my dear Mari- 
anne ! ” 

“Tell me ! ” she said, as she stretched herself on a 
divan, her arms crossed, looking ravishingly lovely in 
her red gown. 

He sought some forcible phrase that would crush her, 
but he could find none. His only desire was to take 
that fair face in his hands and to fasten his lips thereon. 

Marianne smiled maliciously. 

“ It is true then,” Vaudrey exclaimed, “ that you love 
Monsieur de Rosas?” 


PART SECOND 


493 

“ There, you are well-informed ! It is strange ! 
Perhaps that is because you are no longer a minister ! ” 

“You love Rosas?” 

“Yes, and' I am marrying him. I have the honor to 
announce to you my marriage to Monsieur le Due Jos6 
de Rosas, Marquis de Fuentecarral. It surprises me, 
but it is so ! — I have known days when I have not had 
six sous to take the omnibus, and now I am to be a 
duchess ! This does not seem to please you? Are' 
you selfish, then? ” 

Stretched on her divan, her neck and arms sparkling 
under the light of the sconces, she appeared to make 
sport of Vaudrey’s stupefaction as he looked at her 
almost with fright. 

“Now, my dear,” she said curtly, but politely, as she 
toyed with a ring on her finger, “ this is why I desired to 
see you to-day. It is to tell you that if you care to re- 
main friendly on terms that forbid sensual enjoyment, 
which, is not objectionable in putting a lock on the past, 
you may visit the Duchesse de Rosas just as you have 
Mademoiselle Kayser. But if you are bent on finding 
in the Duchesse de Rosas the good-natured girl that I 
have been toward you, and you are quite capable of it, 
for you are a sentimental fellow, then it will be useless 
to even appear to have ever known each other. I am 
turning the key on my life. Crac t Bonsoir, Sulpice ! ” 

The unhappy man ! He had cherished the thought of 
still visiting his mistress, but he found there an unlooked- 


494 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


for being, a new creature, who was unmistakably deter- 
mined, in spite of her cunning charm, and she spoke to 
him in stupefying, ironical language. 

“ You would have me go mad, Marianne? ” 

“Why! what an idea! the phrase is decidedly ro- 
mantic— You should dispense with the blue in love as 
well as the exaggeration in politics.” 

“ Marianne,” Vaudrey said abruptly, “ do you know 
that for your sake I have destroyed my home and mor- 
tally wounded my wife? ” 

“Well,” she replied, “did I ask you to do so? I 
pleased you, you pleased me ; that was quite enough. I 
desire no one’s death and if you have allowed everything 
to be known, it is because you have acted indiscreetly or 
stupidly ! But I who do not wish to mortally wound,” 
she emphasized these words with a smile — “ my husband, 
I expect him to suspect nothing, know nothing, and as 
you are incapable of possessing enough intelligence not 
to play Antony with him, let us stop here. Adieu, then, 
my dear Vaudrey ! ” 

She extended her hand to him, that soft hand that 
imparted an electrical influence when he touched it. 
“Well, what ! — You are pouting? ” 

“ I love you,” he replied distractedly. “ I love you, 
you hear, and I wish to keep you ! ” 

“ Ah ! no, no ! no roughness,” she said with a laugh, 
as he, taking a seat near her, tried to draw her to him 
in his arms. 


PART SECOND 


495 

“To keep you, although belonging to another,” whis- 
pered Vaudrey slowly. 

“ For whom do you take me?” said Marianne, proudly 
drawing herself up. “ If I have a husband, I require 
that he be respected. A man who gives his name to a 
woman is clearly entitled to be dealt with truthfully ! ” 

“Then,” stammered Sulpice, “what? — Must we never 
see each other again? ” 

“ We shall recognize each other.” 

“You drive me away? ” 

“ As a lover ! ” 

“Ah! stay,” said Vaudrey, as, pale with anger, he 
walked across the room, “ you are a miserable woman, a 
courtesan, you understand, a courtesan ! — Guy has told 
me everything ! You gave yourself to Jouvenet to avenge 
yourself on Lissac, you made a tool of me and you are 
making a sport of Rosas who is marrying you ! — What 
have I not done for you !— I have ruined myself ! yes, 
ruined myself ! ” 

“ My dear,” interrupted Marianne, “ see the difference 
between a gentleman like Monsieur de Rosas and a little 
bourgeois like yourself. The duke might have ruined 
himself for me but he would never have reproached me. 
One never speaks of money to a woman. You are a 
very honest, domestic man and you were born to worship 
your wife ! You should stick to her ! You are not made 
of the stuff of a true-born lover. What you have just 
told me is the remark of a loon ! ” 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


496 

“ Ah ! if I had only known you ! ” 

“ Or anything ! But I am better than you, you 
see. I was better advised than you. The bill of 
exchange that you owe to the Dujarrier or to Go- 
chard, — whichever you like — it inconveniences you, I 
know ! ” 

“Yes,”’ said Vaudrey, “but — ” 

“ You would not, I think, desire me to pay it with the 
duke’s money, that Monsieur de Rosas should pay your 
debts?” 

“ Marianne,” cried Sulpice, livid with rage. 

“Bless me ! you speak to me of money? You chant 
your ruin to me ! The De Profundis of your money- 
box, should I know that? I question with myself as to 
what it means ! — However, knowing you to be financially 
embarrassed, I have myself found you help— Yes, I told 
someone who understands how to extricate business men, 
.that you were embarrassed 1 ” 

“I?” 

“ There is nothing to blush about. I told Molina the 
Tumbler — You know him ? ” 

Did he know him ! At that very moment he saw the 
•ruddy gold moon that represented the banker’s face 
amid all the expanse of his shining flesh. He trembled 
as if in the face of temptation. 

“Molina is a man of means,” said Marianne. “If 
you need money, you can have it there ! And now, once 
more, leave me to my new life ! The past is as if it had 


PART SECOND 


497 


never been ! — Bonjour , Bonsoir! — and adieu, go ! — 
Give me your hand ! ” 

She smiled so strangely, half lying on the divan, and 
stretched out her white hand, which he covered with 
kisses, murmuring : 

“Well, yes, adieu ! Yes, adieu ! — But once more — 
once ! — this evening — I love you so dearly ! — Will you? ” 

She quietly reached out her bare arm toward a silk 
bell-rope that she jerked suddenly and Vaudrey rose 
enraged and humiliated. 

“Show Monsieur Vaudrey out,” Marianne said to 
Justine, as she appeared at the door. “ Then you may 
go to bed, my girl ! ” 

Vaudrey left this woman’s house in a fit of frenzy. She 
had just treated him who had paid for the divan on 
which she was reclining as a genuine duchess might 
have treated a man who had been insolently disrespect- 
ful toward her. He was almost inclined to laugh at it. 

“ It is well done ! well done for you ! Ah ! the dolt ! 
To trust a wanton ! To trust Warcolier ! To trust 
everybody ! To trust everybody except Adrienne ! — ” 

He, mechanically and without thought, resumed the 
way to Place Beauvau, forgetting that the ministerial 
home was no longer his. The porter — who knows? 
might not have opened the gate to him. The lackeys 
would have driven him off as the girl had done whom he 
had paid, yes, paid, paid ! For she was a harlot, noth- 
ing more ! 

33 


498 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

Gradually, the thought of that debt swelled by suc- 
cessive bills of exchange, and almost forgotten during 
the recent days of feverish excitement, took possession 
of his mind, he remembered that it must be discharged 
on the first day of December, in five days, and the 
thought troubled him like an impending danger. The 
prospect had often, during the last few weeks, made 
him anxious. He saw the months pass, the days flit 
with extraordinary rapidity, and the maturity, the inevi- 
table due date draw near with the mathematical regular- 
ity of a clock. So long as months were ahead he felt 
no anxiety. Like gamblers he counted on chance. 
Besides, he still had some farms in Dauphiny. In 
short, a word to his notary and he could speedily get 
out of danger. Then, too, the date of payment was far 
away. He calculated that by economy as to his per- 
sonal income and his official salary he could meet the 
bill to Gochard, whose very name sometimes made him 
laugh. But Marianne’s exactions, unforeseen outlays, 
the eternal leakage of Parisian life had quite prevented 
saving, and had dissipated in a thousand little streams, 
the money that he wished to pay out in a lump in De- 
cember. He soon grew alarmed by degrees at the ap- 
proach of the maturity of the debt. He had written to 
his notary at Grenoble, and this old friend had replied 
that the farms of Saint- Laurent-du-Pont, mortgaged and 
cut up one ^af ter another, now represented only a ridicu- 
lous value, but that after all, Vaudrey had nothing to be 


PART SECOND 


499 

concerned about, seeing that Madame Vaudrey’s fortune 
was intact. 

Adrienne’s fortune ! That then was all that remained 
to Vaudrey, and that might be his salvation. A fortune 
that was not very considerable, but still solid and credit- 
able. But even if he were strangled by debt, dunned 
and driven into a corner, could he pay the debts he had 
contracted for his mistress by means of his wife’s fortune? 
He was disgusted at the thought. It was impossible. 

Vaudrey felt his head turn under the humiliation of 
his double defeat, the loss of parliamentary confidence, 
and Marianne’s insulting laugh, and urged by the anx- 
iety he felt about the obligation to be met in eight days, 
in his bewilderment he thought of writing to Gochard 
of Rue des Marais, to ask for time. This Gochard must 
be a half-usurer. Certain of being paid, some day, he 
would perhaps be delighted to renew the bill of exchange 
in inordinately swelling the amount. The letter was 
written and Vaudrey mailed it himself the following 
morning. 

That very evening Adrienne was to leave. He en- 
deavored to dissuade her from her plan. She did not 
even reply to him. She stood looking at a crystal vase 
on the chimney-piece in which were some winter roses, 
Christmas roses, fresh and milk-white, that had been 
sent as a souvenir from yonder Dauphiny. Her glance 
rested fixedly on that fair bouquet that seemed like a 
bursting cloud of whiteness. 


5 00 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“Then,” said Vaudrey, “ it is settled — quite settled — 
you are going? ” 

“ I am.” 

“In three hours?” 

“ In three hours ! ” 

« I know where those roses were gathered,” said Sul- 
pice tenderly. “ It was at the foot of the window where 
we leaned elbow to elbow and dreamed.” 

“Yes,” Adrienne answered, in a broken voice whose 
sound was like that which might have been given out by 
the vase had it been struck and shattered. “We had 
lovely dreams ! The reality has indeed belied them ! ” 

“ Adrienne ! ” he murmured. 

She made no reply. 

He tried to approach her, feeling ashamed as he 
thought that he had similarly wished to approach Mari- 
anne. 

She instinctively drew back. 

“You remember,” she said coldly, “that one day 
when we were speaking about divorce, I told you that 
there was a very simple way of divorce ? It was never 
to see each other again, never, to be nothing more 
to each other from the day on which confidence should 
die? — You have deceived me, it is done. I am a 
stranger to you ! If I were a mother, I should have 
duties to fulfil. I would not have failed therein. I 
would have endured everything for a son ! — Nothing 
is left to me. I have not even the joy of caressing a 


PART SECOND 


5oi 

child that would have consoled me. I am your widow 
while you yet live. Well, be it so. You have willed it, 
there, then, is divorce ! ” 

For the third time since Adrienne had learned every- 
thing, he tried to stammer the word pardon . He felt it 
was useless. This sensitive being had withdrawn within 
herself and wrapped herself, as with a cloak, in all her 
outraged chastity. He could only humiliate himself 
without softening her. All Adrienne’s deceived trustful- 
ness and insulted love strengthened her in her determi- 
nation never to forgive. 

She would go. 

Vaudrey in despair returned to his study, where the 
books that had been sent from the ministry were piled 
upon the carpet in all the confusion attending an entry 
into occupation. The servant at once brought him his 
lamp and handed him a package of cards in envelopes, 
— cards of condolence as for a death — and a large card, 
Saying : “ That gentleman is here ! ” 

“Molina ! ” said Vaudrey, becoming very pale. 
“ Show him in ! ” 

The fat Salomon entered puffing and smiling, and 
spread himself out on an armchair as he said to the 
former minister : 

“Well, how goes it? — Not too badly crushed, eh? — 
Bah ! what is it after all to quit office ?— Only a means 
for returning to it, sometimes ! ” 

“All the same,” he said with his cackling laugh 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


502 

that sounded like the jingling of a money-bag, “ there are 
too many changes of ministers ! They change them like 
shirts ! It puts me out. I get used to one Excellency 
and he is put aside ! So it is settled, henceforth I will 
not say Excellency save to the usher or an office-boy ! ” 

He accompanied his clumsy jests with a loud laugh, 
then, changing his tone : 

“ Come, that is not all. I came to speak of business 
to you.” ... .. . 

He looked Vaudrey full in the face with his piercing 
glance, took from his pocketbook a printed sheet and 
said in a precise tone : 

“ Here is an opportunity where your title of former 
minister will serve you better than that of minister. So 
much is being said of Algeria, its mines and its fibre. 
Well, read that ! " 

Vaudrey took the paper. It was the prospectus, very 
skilfully drawn, of a company established to introduce 
gas into Algeria, almost as far as the Sahara. They prom- 
ised the subscribers wonders and miracles : acres upon 
acres of land as a bonus. There was a fortune to be 
made. Meantime, they would issue six thousand shares 
of five hundred francs. It was three millions they were 
asking from the public. A mere trifle. 

“They might ask ten,” said Molina, smiling. “They 
would give it !”" - 

“ And you wish me to subscribe to your Algerian gas ? ” 
asked Vaudrey. 


PART SECOND 


S'°3 

The fat Molina burst out into loud laughter this time. 

“I? I simply wish to give you the opportunity to 
make a fortune ! ” 

“ How? ” 

“ That is one scheme. I will bring you four, five, ten 
of them ! I have another, the Luxemburg coal. A de- 
posit equal to that of Charleroi. You have only to allow 
me to print in the list of directors : Monsieur Sulpice 
Vaudrey, former President of the Council.” 

Vaudrey looked the fat man squarely in the face. 

“ Besides you will be in good company ! ” said the 
banker as he read over the names of deputies, senators, 
statesmen, coupled with those of financiers. 

Sulpice knew most of them. 

He despised nearly all of them. It was such that 
Molina styled good company ! 

" And those mines, are you certain they will produce 
what you promise ? ” 

“ Ah ! ” said Salomon, “ that is the engineers’ matter ! 
Here is the report of a mining engineer who is perhaps 
straining after effect and doing a little puffing up ! But 
one must go with the times ! He who ventures nothing, 
has nothing. In war, one risks one’s skin ; in business, 
one risks one’s money. That is war.” 

Vaudrey debated with himself whether he should tear 
the prospectus in pieces and throw them in the face of 
the fat man. 

“My dear Vaudrey,” said the Tumbler," you have a 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


5°4 

vein that is entirely your own. A former minister re- 
mains always a former minister. Well, such a title as 
that is turned to account. It is quoted, like any other 
commodity. You are not rich, that fact proves your 
honesty, although in America, and we are Americanizing 
ourselves devilishly much, that would only be the meas- 
ure of your stupidity. You can become rich, I have the 
means of making myself agreeable to you and you have 
the opportunity of becoming useful to us.” 

“ In a word, you buy my name? ” 

“ I hire it from you 1 Very dearly,” said Molina, still 
laughing. 

“ Certainly,” said Vaudrey, “you did not understand 
me on the first occasion that you called on me to speak 
about money, and when I questioned with myself whether 
I should ask you not to call again.” 

Molina interrupted him abruptly by rising. He felt 
that an insult was about to be uttered. He parried it by 
anticipating it. 

“ Stupidity ! ” he said. “ Here is the prospectus. 
There are the names of the directors. You will con- 
sider. It has never injured any one to take advantage of 
his position. The puritans, in an age of trickery, are 
idiots ; I say so. What I propose to you surprises you. 
To place your name beside that of Monsieur Pichereau 
or Monsieur Numa de Baranville ! It is as simple as 
saying good-day. Perhaps you think then that you will 
be the only one ? They all do it, all those who are ex- 


PART SECOND 


505 

travagant and shrewd. It is a matter of coquetting in 
these days over a hundred-sou piece ! Come, I will 
wager that Monsieur Montyon would not mince matters 
— especially if he had transferable paper in circula- 
tion ! ” 

“ You know that? ” said Vaudrey, turning pale. 

“ Ah ! I know many others in like condition! Come, 
no false modesty ! It is a matter of business only ! I 
tell you again, I have many other cases. All this is in 
order to have the pleasure of offering you certificates for 
attendance fees. I will open a credit for you of two 
hundred thousand francs, if you wish. We will arrange 
matters afterwards.” 

“ I will leave you these declarations of faith ! ” added 
Molina, showing the prospectus of the gas undertaking. 
“ Fear nothing ! It is not more untruthful than the 
others ! It is unnecessary to show me out. A la re- 
vista /” 

He disappeared abruptly, Vaudrey hearing the floor 
of the hall creak under this man’s hippopotamus feet, 
and the unhappy Sulpice who had spun so many, such 
glorious and grand dreams, dreams of liberty, freedom 
and virtue, civic regeneration, reconstructed national 
morals and character, the sacredness of the hearth 
and the education of the conscience; this Vaudrey, 
bruised by life, overthrown by his vices, was there 
under the soft light of his lamp, looking with staring eye, 
as a being who wishes to die contemplates the edge of an 


506 his excellency the minister 

abyss, looking at that printed paper soliciting subscrip- 
tions, beating the big drum of the promoter in order to 
entrap the vast and ever-credulous horde. 

His name ! To put his name there ! The name of 
Vaudrey that he had dreamed of reading at the foot of 
so many noble, eternal and reforming laws, to inscribe it 
upon that paper beneath so many cunning names, jug- 
glers, habitual drainers of the public cash-box. To fall 
to that ! To do that ! 

To lend himself? 

To sell himself ! 

And why not sell himself? Who would discharge this 
bill of exchange ? The Gochard paper ! The debt of 
the past ! The price of the nights spent with Marianne ! 
The hundred thousand francs for that girl’s kisses ! 

Sulpice felt in the weakness increased by a growing 
fever, that his self-possession was leaving him. All his 
ideas clashed confusedly. Amid the chaos, only one 
clear idea remained; a hundred and sixty thousand 
francs had to be found. Where were they to be found ? 
Yes, where? Through Molina, who offered him two 
hundred thousand ! This open credit seemed to him 
like an opened-up placer in which he had only to dig 
with his nails. The cunning and thick voice of the 
Hebrew banker echoed in Sulpice’s ears : “ They all do 
it ! ” It was not so difficult to give his name, or to hire 
it, as Salomon said. Who the devil would notice it at a 
time when indifference passes Over scandals as the sea 


PART SECOND 


5°7 

covers the putrid substances on the shore and washes 
them with its very scum? 

“ They all do it ! M 

No, despite the irony of the handler of money, there 
are some consciences that refuse to yield : and then, 
what then? — Vaudrey had desired virtue of a different 
kind and other morals ! Ah ! how he had suffered the 
poison to penetrate him even to his bones ! How 
Marianne had deformed and moulded him at her fancy, 
and he still thought of her only with unsatisfied longings 
for her kisses and ardor ! Ah ! women ! Woman! Yes, 
indeed, yes, woman was the great source of moral weak- 
ness and inactivity. She used politics in her own way, in 
destroying politicians. If he had only left office with 
head erect and not dragging the chain-shot of debt ! 
But that bill of exchange ! Who would pay that? 

“ Eh ! Molina, parbleu / Molina ! Molina ! ” 

He was right, too, that triumphant Jew with his in- 
solent good humor. It is an absurd thing, after all, to 
be prudish and to thrust away the dish that is offered 
you. To be rich is, in fact, quite as good as to be pow- 
erful ! Money remains ! That is the only real thing in 
the world ! It would be a fine sight to see a man refuse 
the opportunity to make a fortune, and to refuse it — 
why? For a silly, conscientious scruple. And after all, 
business was the very life of modern society. This 
Molina, circulating his money, was as useful as many 
others who circulate ideas. 


59 8 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ His Algerian gas is a work of civilization just like 
any other ! ” 

Urged by the necessity of escaping from that debt 
that strangled him like a running noose, Sulpice gradually 
arrived at argumentative sophistries, which were but 
capitulations to his own probity, cowardly arrangements 
with his own conscience. His name? Well, he would 
turn it into money since it was worth a gold ingot ! The 
journalist who sells his thought, the artist who sells his 
marble, the writer who sells his experiences and his recol- 
lections, equally sell their names and for money, the 
flesh of their flesh. Like a living answer and a remorse, 
he saw the lean face and white moustache of Ramel, who 
was seated at the window, breathing the warm rays of 
the sun, in the little room on Rue Boursault, but he an- 
swered, speaking aloud : 

“Well, what? — Ramel is a saint, a hero ! — But I am 
no saint. I am a man and I will live ! ” 

Somewhat angered, he took the prospectus that Molina 
had left him and rereading it again and again, he re- 
lapsed into a sitting posture and with haggard eyes 
scanned the loud-swelling lines of that commercial an- 
nouncement, seeking therein some pretext for accepting. 
For he would accept, that was done. Nothing more was 
to be said, his conscience yielded. He was inclined to 
laugh. 

“ Still another victim caught and floored by Molina 
the Tumbler !” 


PART SECOND 


5°9 

He remained there, terrified at the prospect of the 
quasi-association he had determined on and by his com- 
plicity with a jobber of questionable business. 

With his eye fixed upon this solicitation for capital, 
wherein were the words which would formerly have re- 
pelled him : joint stock company , capital stock, public sub- 
scription, subscription certijicate, and at the head of 
which he was about to inscribe his name as one of the 
directors, at the foot of a capitulation, as it were, Sul- 
pice had not seen, standing in the doorway of his half- 
lighted study, a woman in travelling costume, who stopped 
for a moment to look at the unfortunate, dejected man 
within the shade of the lamp which made him look more 
bald than he was, then advanced gently toward him, 
coughing slightly — for she did not dare to call him by his 
name or touch him with her gloved hand — to warn him 
that she was there. 

Vaudrey turned round abruptly, instinctively pushing 
aside Molina’s prospectus, as if he already felt some 
shame in holding it in his hands. 

He flushed as he recognized Adrienne. 

The young woman’s reserved attitude showed absolute 
firmness. She came to say adieu, she was about to 
leave. 

He had not even the energy to keep her. He was 
afraid of an unbending reply that would have been an 
outrage. 

“Do you intend to become associated with Molina? ” 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


S 10 

Adrienne asked in a clear voice, as she looked at Sul- 
pice, who had risen. 

“ What ! Molina? ” he stammered. 

“ Yes, oh ! he understands business. On leaving, he 
called on me. He thought that I had still sufficient in- 
fluence over you to urge you, as he says, to make your 
fortune. He told me that you were in want of money, 
and after having been sharp enough to try the husband, 
he offered me, as you might give a commission to a 
courtesan, I do not know what emerald ornament, if 
I would advise you to accept his proposals ! — That gen- 
tleman does not know the people with whom he is deal- 
ing ! ” 

“Wretch ! ” said Vaudrey. “ He did that? ” 

“ And I thanked him,” Adrienne replied calmly. “ I 
did not know that you had debts and that, in order to 
pay them, you had come so near accepting the patron- 
age of such a man. He told me so and he rendered me 
and you a service.” 

“Me?” 

Vaudrey snatched up the prospectus of the Algerian 
gas and angrily tore it in pieces. 

“We shall probably not see each other again,” said 
Adrienne, in a firm voice that contrasted strangely with 
her gentle grace; “but I shall never forget that I bear 
your name and that being mine, I will ever honor it.” 

She handed Sulpice a document. 

“ Here is a power of attorney to Monsieur Beauvais, 


PART SECOND 


5 ” 

my notary. All that you need of my dowry to free 
yourself from liabilities is yours. I do not wish to know 
why you have incurred debts, I am anxious only to know 
that you have paid them and my signature provides you 
with the means to do so.” 

Dejected, his heart burning, and his sobs rising, 
Sulpice uttered a loud cry as he rushed toward her : 

“Adrienne ! ” 

She withdrew her hand slowly while he was trying to 
seize it. 

“You have nothing to thank me for,” she said. “I 
am a partner, saving, as I best can, the honor of the 
house. That association is better than Molina’s.” 

“Adieu,” she added bitterly. 

“ Are you going — ? Going away ? ” asked Sulpice, try- 
ing to give to his entreaty something like an echo of the 
love of the former days. 

“Whose fault is it? ” replied the young woman, in a 
voice as chilly as steel. 

She was no longer the Adrienne of old, the little timid 
provincial with blushing cheek and trembling gesture. 
Sorrow, the most terrible of disillusions, had hardened 
and, as it were, petrified her. Vaudrey felt that to ask 
forgiveness would be in vain. Time only could soften 
that poor woman, obstinately unbending in her grief. 
He needed but to observe her attitude and cutting 
tones to fully realize that. 

“ It is quite understood,” she continued, treating this 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


5 12 

question of her happiness as if she were cutting deep 
into her flesh and severing the tenderest fibres of her 
being, but without trembling, — “ it is quite understood, 
is it not, that we shall make no scene or scandal? We 
are separated neither judicially nor even in appearance. 
We live apart by mutual consent, far from each other, 
without anything being known by outsiders of this defin- 
itive rupture.” 

"Adrienne!” Sulpice repeated, "it is impossible, 
you will not leave ! ” 

"Oh ! ” she said. "I gave myself and I have taken 
myself back. Your entreaties will not now alter my 
determination. I am eager to leave Paris. It seems to 
me that I have regained myself and that I escape from 
falsity, lies, and infamy, and from a swarm of insects 
that crawl over my body ! — I bid you farewell, and fare- 
well it is ! ” 

" Well, let it be so ! ” exclaimed Vaudrey. " Go ! But 
if it is a stranger who leaves me, I will accept nothing 
from her. Here is the authority. Will you take it 
back? ” 

"I? No, I will not take it back ! If you desire me 
to be worthy of the name that you have given me, keep 
it honored, at least, in the sight of the world, since to 
betray a woman, to mock and insult her, is not dishonor- 
ing. I alone have the right to save you from shame. 
Do not deny me the privilege that I claim. I do not 
desire that the man who has been my husband should 


PART SECOND 


513 

descend to the questionable intrigues of a Molina. You 
have outraged me enough, do not impose this last insult 
on me ! ” 

“ For the last time, adieu ! ” 

She went out, and he allowed her to disappear, over- 
whelmed by this living mourning of a faith. She fled and 
he allowed her to descend the stairway, followed by her 
femme de chambre. She entered the carriage that was 
waiting for her below, in Rue Chauss^e-d’Antin, but he 
had not the courage, hopeless as he was, to follow the 
carriage whose rumbling he heard above the noise of the 
street as it rolled away more quickly and more heavily 
than the others, and it seemed to him that its wheels 
had crushed his bosom. 

“ Ah ! what a wretch I have been ! ” he said as he 
struck his knee with his closed fist. “ How unhappy I 
am ! Adrienne ! ” 

He rose abruptly, as if moved by a spring, and bounded 
toward a window which he threw wide open to admit 
the cold wind of this November evening, and tried to 
distinguish among the many carriages that rolled through 
the brownish mud, with their lighted lamps shining like 
so many eyes, to discover, to imagine the carriage that 
was bearing Adrienne away. He believed that he rec- 
ognized it in a vehicle that was threading its way, loaded 
with trunks, almost out of sight yonder. 

He leaned upon the window-sill, and like a ship- 
wrecked sailor who sees a receding ship, he called out, 
33 


514 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

with a loud cry lost in the tempest of that bustling and 
busy street : 

“ Adrienne ! Adrienne ! ” 

No reply ! The carriage had disappeared in the 
distance, in the fog. 

For a moment, Sulpice remained there crushed but 
drawn by the noise of the street, as if by some whirlpool 
in the deep sea. Had he been thrown out and been 
dashed upon the pavements, he would have been happy. 
Only a void seemed about him, and before him that 
black hollow in which moved confusedly only strangers 
who in no way formed part of his life. 

This isolation terrified him. At last, he went down- 
stairs in haste, threw himself into a carriage and had him- 
self driven to the railway, intending to see Adrienne 
again. 

“ Quickly ! quickly ! at your best speed ! ” 

The driver whipped up his horses and the carriage- 
windows clattered with the noise of old iron. 

Vaudrey arrived too late. The train had left twenty 
minutes before. He had reflected too long at his win- 
dow. 

“Besides,” he said to himself sadly, “she would not 
have forgiven me ! She will never forget ! ” 

Buried in the corner of the coach that took her away, 
and closing her eyes, recalling all her past life, so cruelly 
ironical to-day, Adrienne, disturbed by the noise and 
rolling of the train that increased her feverish condition, 


PART SECOND 


515 

felt her heart swell, and poor, broken creature that she 
was, called all her strength to her aid to refrain from 
weeping, from crying out in her grief. She was taking 
away, back to the country, the half-withered Christmas 
roses received from Grenoble, and in the morbid confu- 
sion of the ideas that clashed in her poor brain, she saw 
once more Lissac’s blanched face and heard Guy tell her 
again : “ It is because you are a virtuous woman that I 
love you ! ” 

“ A virtuous woman ! Does he know how to love as 
well as the others? ” she murmured, as she thought of 
Vaudreywhom she would never see again, and whom she 
no longer loved. 

“ See ! I am a widow now, and a widow who will 
never love anyone, and who will never marry again.” 


VIII 

Alone in Paris now, a body without a soul, distracted, 
and the prey of ennui, with sad and bitter regret for his 
wasted life, repeating to himself that Adrienne, far away 
from him, would never forgive, and was doubtless, at 
this moment, saying and saying again to herself in her 
solitude at Grenoble, that these politicians, at least, 
owed her divorce, Vaudrey, not knowing what to do after 
a weary day of troubled rest, mechanically entered the 
Op£ra House to distract his eyes if not his mind. 


5 i6 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

They were rendering Aida that evening, and a debu- 
tante had been announced as a star. 

Sulpice Vaudrey, since Adrienne’s departure, — already 
two weeks ! — had wandered about Paris like a damned 
soul when he did not attend the Chamber, wdiere he 
experienced the discomforts and the weakness of a 
fallen man. Weary, disgusted and melancholy, Vaudrey 
took his seat in the theatre to kill an evening. 

There was what was called in the language of a 
Paris editor, a swell house. In front of the stage there 
was literally a shower of diamonds and the boxes were 
gaily adorned. The fauteuils were occupied by Parisian 
glories and foreign celebrities. Not a stall in the amphi- 
theatre without its celebrity. Chance had placed in this 
All- Paris gathering, Madame Sabine Marsy and Madame 
Gerson, the two friends who detested each other. The 
pretty little Madame Gerson occupied and filled with her 
prattle, the box of the Prefect of Police — No. 30, in 
which Monsieur Jouvenet showed his churchwarden’s 
profile. She was talking aloud about her salon, her re- 
ceptions, her acquaintances. She was eclipsing Madame 
Marsy with her triumphs. At the back of the box, 
Monsieur Gerson was sleeping, overcome by fatigue. 
Madame Gerson laughed on observing Sulpice in the 
orchestra-stalls. 

“ See 1 there is Monsieur Vaudrey ! He still looks a 
little beaten ! ” she said. 

And she told her friends, crowded in the box, leaning 


PART SECOND 


517 

over her and looking at the pretty, plump bosom of this 
little, well-made brunette, how Vaudrey was to dine at 
her house on the very evening when he fell from power. 

“ Of course, he did not come ! ” she said. “ I re- 
member what Madame Marsy advised me, one day, — 
she has passed through that in her time : one should 
think of the invitations to dinner before dismissing a 
ministry ! Oh ! it is tiresome ; think of it ! — One invites 
the Secretary of the President of the Council to dinner. 
He is named on the card. He comes. It is all over ; 
he is no longer Secretary of the President, the President 
of the Council is no longer President, there is no longer 
a President, perhaps not even a Council ; one should 
be certain of one’s titles and rank before accepting an 
invitation to dinner ! ” 

She laughed heartily and loud, and Madame Marsy, 
who was half dethroned, fanned herself nervously in her 
box, or levelled her glass at some one in the audience, 
affecting a little disdainful manner toward her fair neigh- 
bor. A friendship turned to acid. 

Vaudrey, looking fatigued and abstracted, sat in his 
stall during the entr’acte. He looked unconsciously 
about the theatre and still felt surprised at not receiving 
salutations and bows, as formerly. He felt that he 
was becoming a waif. Bah ! he consoled himself with 
the thought that the human race is thus constructed : 
everything is in success, he gets most who offers most. 
Why then trouble about it ? 


5 18 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

His eyes followed the movement of his glass and one 
after another he saw Madame Marsy, Jouvenet, Madame 
Gerson, so many living and exceedingly taunting recol- 
lections, when suddenly Sulpice trembled, shaken by a 
keener and almost angry feeling as his glance was 
directed to a box against the dark-red of which two faces 
were boldly outlined : those of Rosas and Marianne. 

He was excited and unpleasantly piqued. 

There before him he saw, between two large pillars, 
bearing gigantic, gilded masts that seemed to mock at 
him, the woman whom he had adored and the sight of 
whom still tore his heart. Pale and dressed in a white 
gown, she was leaning toward Rosas in a most adorable 
attitude, with her fair hair half-falling on her white 
shoulders — those shoulders that he still saw trembling 
under his kisses, those shoulders on which he might have 
pressed his burning lips and his teeth. 

That livid beauty, strangely adorable, with her hair 
and ears dazzling with jewels, stood clearly out against 
the background of the box in which, like an enormous 
Cyclopean eye, appeared the round, ground glass let 
into the door, forming a nimbus of light around Mari- 
anne’s brow. Paler than her, with a sickly but smiling 
countenance, Rosas showed his bloodless, pale, Spanish 
face beside that of Marianne, as tragic looking as a 
portrait by Coello. His tired-looking, pensive, thin face 
was resting on his hand which through the opera-glass 
looked a transparent hand of wax, on which an enormous 


PART SECOND 


5 r 9 

emerald ring flashed under the gaslight. Monsieur de 
Rosas did not move. 

She, on the contrary, at times inclined toward him, 
bringing her mouth close to the Castilian’s ear, standing 
out against his reddish beard as if detached therefrom, 
and she whispered to Rosas words that Vaudrey sur- 
mised, and which caused a spark of feverish delight to 
lighten up Josh’s sad eyes. As she leaned back tilting 
her chair, her satin corsage below the bust was hidden 
from Sulpice by the edge of the box and he saw only 
her face, neck and white shoulders, and she seemed to 
him to be quite naked, the lines of her serpentine body 
sharply marked by the red line of the velvet border. And 
with his greedy glance he continued to trace the curves of 
that exquisite torso, the back that he had pressed, all 
the being moulded by voluptuousness, that had been 
his. 

This was the vanishing of his last dream ! This love 
gone, this deception driven into his heart like a knife, 
his last faith mocked at, insulted, and branded with its 
true na mt, folly, he felt as if a yawning chasm had been 
opened in him. Life was over ! He was old now and 
he had wasted, yes, wasted his happiness in playing at 
youth. He had believed himself loved ! Loved ! Im- 
becile that he was ! 

He felt himself urged by a strong temptation to go to 
that box and open its door and cry out to that man who 
had not yet given his name to that woman : 


5 20 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


“ You do not know her ! She is debauchery and 
falsehood itself ! ” 

“ It seemed to Vaudrey that at times a bearded face, 
surmounting a white cravat, appeared behind Rosas and 
Marianne : the haughty face of Uncle Simon. 

While the throng of Egyptians filed on the stage, Sul- 
pice endeavored to turn away his thoughts and remove 
his glances from that group that attracted him. He 
still, however, looked at it, in spite of himself, and 
voluntarily wounded his own heart. 

Marianne did not seem to have even noticed him. 

The curtain fell and he wandered into the wings, less 
to be there than to escape that irritating sight. In 
breathing that atmosphere of a theatre, he experienced 
a strange sensation that pained and consoled him at the 
same time. The scene-shifters were rolling back the 
illuminating apparatus pierced with light, and dragged 
to the rear the huge white sphinxes and the immense 
canvas on which the palm-trees were outlined upon a 
blue sky. Sulpice felt the cruelly ironical sensation of 
finding himself, disheartened and defeated, once more 
on the very boards where he had entered the first 
time, smiling, swelling with joy, saluting and saluted and 
hearing on every side the same murmur, sweet as a May 
zephyr : 

“ Monsieur le Ministre.” 

It was the same scene, the same dress-coats upon the 
same luminous boards, the same electric rays that fell 


PART SECOND 


521 

around him in the hour of his accession, creating the 
same vulgar aureole. Some firemen crossed the stage 
slowly and with a wearied expression made their exami- 
nations ; some water-carriers were sprinkling the parquet, 
while others were brushing away the dust. And as if these 
commonplace details interested Sulpice, he watched with 
a vacant expression, as if his thoughts had taken wing. 

Suddenly, in the centre of a group, with his hat on, 
escorted by bending men, whose lips expressed flattery, 
Sulpice recognized Lucien Granet, who in the dazzling 
triumph of his new kingdom, crossed and recrossed the 
stage, distributing here and there patronizing bows. 

The coarse Molina accompanied the new minister, 
laughing in a loud tone like the sound of a well-filled 
cash-box suddenly shaken. 

Vaudrey felt just as if he had received a blow full in 
the chest. 

He recalled his own meeting as a successful man with 
Pichereau the beaten one, on these very boards and 
almost in the same place, and in order to avoid having 
to endure the friendly ironical hand-shake that Pichereau 
was approaching him to give — the hand-shake formerly 
given to Pichereau — he quickly hid himself behind a 
wing, receiving as he did so, a blow, accompanied with 
a : Pardon , monsieur , from a workman who was pushing 
along a piece of scenery, and a : What a clumsy fellow / 
from a little danseuse, the tip of whose pink slipper he 
had unwittingly grazed with his heel. 


5 22 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


He turned to the danseuse to apologize, when he per- 
ceived a young girl, all in pink, whose blue eyes looked 
frightened and her cheeks reddened when she recog- 
nized Yaudrey. It was Marie Launay, whom he had 
seen in the greenroom the previous year, who had not 
yet scored a success , while he was retired, 

“Oh! I did not recognize you,” she said. “I beg 
your pardon, Monsieur le Ministre ! ” 

He wished to make some reply ; but this title used 
by the young girl, ignorant of the political change, grated 
on his heart like the scratching of a nail and he saw on 
the other side of the stage, reaching the house by the 
communicating door, Lucien Granet, surrounded by his 
staff, and followed by the eternal cortege of powerful ones, 
among whom Warcolier was talking loudly, and Molina 
the Tumbler was recognizable by his enormous paunch 
and loud laugh. 

“ Perhaps Madame Marsy has asked that this Granet 
be presented to her,” thought Vaudrey as he mockingly 
recalled how Guy de Lissac ran after him there in order 
to conduct him to the fashionable woman’s box. 

How long it was since then ! 

Sabine Marsy was dethroned. And he ! — 

He felt a friendly tap on the shoulder as he was moving 
away, and turning around he saw Warcolier who, having 
seen him in the distance, doubtless came to him to enjoy 
the simple pleasure of treating him patronizingly, he who 
had so long called him Monsieur le Ministre. 


PART SECOND 


5 2 3 

“Well, my dear Vaudrey, what is the news?” said 
Warcolier, bearing his head high and smiling with a silly, 
but an aggressively benign expression, with the superior 
tone of satisfied fools. 

“ Nothing ! ” said Sulpice. “ I think Verdi’s music is 
superb ! ” 

“Oh ! a little Wagnerian,” Warcolier replied, repeat- 
ing what he had heard. “ But what of politics? ” 

“ Ah ! politics concerns you now ! ” 

“Well! why,” Warcolier replied, “ that goes on well. 
There is a little relaxation ! a ministry more — more — ” 

“ More homogeneous ! ” said Vaudrey, in a slightly 
mocking tone. 

“ Exactly. And, after all, the duty of every good 
citizen is to defend the government under which we live.” 

Ah ! assuredly, Vaudrey considered that his former 
Secretary of State, now become the vassal of Granet, dis- 
played a rather ridiculous assurance. He smiled as if he 
would have laughed in his face and turned his back upon 
him. 

Warcolier was not annoyed, for he felt certain that he 
had angered the former minister, and he was delighted. 
It was a kick from an ass. The witticism of a fool. 

Vaudrey regained his place, much dissatisfied at having 
come and furious at this pretentious imbecile, when, on 
leaving the wings, he ran against Lissac who was entering 
a sort of hall where Louis sat writing the names of the 
entrances on the sheet. 


5 2 4 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


Guy flushed slightly on seeing him. 

« In order to see you, one has to meet you here,” said 
Sulpice. “ Why have you not called on me ? Is it be- 
cause I am no longer a minister? ” 

“That would be a reason for seeing me more fre- 
quently,” said Lissac. “ But it is not that. What do 
you want me to tell you ? You know my sentiments. I 
don’t care to become a bore, as it is called, or a ceaseless 
prater of morality, which is the same thing. Besides, 
morality to me is something like the Montyon prize to a 
harlot ! Then, too, I am keeping in my corner and I 
shall stick to it hereafter closer than ever. I have put 
the brake on. I am getting old, and I shall bury myself 
in some suburb and look after my rheumatism.” 

In Lissac’s tone there was an unexpected melancholy. 

“Then you will not call on me again? ” 

“What is the use of worrying you? — Reflect for your- 
self, my good man ! You don’t need me to emphasize 
your blunders. By the way, you know, our mad mistress ? 
— She is in the theatre.” 

“ I have seen her ! ” said Vaudrey, turning very pale. 

“She is not yet a duchess, but that will be patched up 
in four days. If one were only a rascal, how one could 
punish the hussy ! But what is the use ? And this devil- 
ish Rosas, who is mad enough over her to tie himself to 
her and to overlook everything he ought to know, would 
be capable of marrying her all the same ! Much good 
may it do him ! ” 


PART SECOND 


525 

“But, tell me then,” said Lissac, whose cutting tone 
suddenly became serious, “have you read the paper?” 

“ No ! What is there in it, then? ” 

“ They were then in the corridor of the Op£ra, and heard 
the prelude to the curtain-raising. Guy took the Soir 
from his pocket and handed it to Vaudrey : 

“ Here, see ! — That poor Ramel ! — You were very fond 
of him, were you not? ” 

“ Ramel ! ” 

Vaudrey had no need to read. He knew everything 
as soon as Guy showed him the paper and mentioned 
Denis’s name in a mournful tone. 

“ Dead ! — He died peacefully in his armchair near 
the window, as if he were asleep.” “The death is an- 
nounced,” so read the paragraph, “of one of the oldest 
members of the Parisian press, Monsieur Denis Ramel, 
who was formerly a celebrated man and for a long time 
directed the Nation Fran^aise, once an important jour- 
nal, now no longer in existence.” Not a word beyond 
the brief details of his death. No word of praise or 
regret, merely the commonplace statement of a fact. 
Vaudrey thought it was a trifling notice for a man who 
had held so large a place in the public eye. 

“What do you think of it?” he said to Lissac. 
“ People are ungrateful.” 

“Why, what would you have? Why didn’t he write 
operettas? ” 

They parted after exchanging almost an ordinary grasp 


526 HIS EXCELLENCY' THE MINISTER 

of the hand, though, perhaps, somewhat sad. Sulpice 
wished to cast a last look at Rosas’s box. Marianne 
was standing, her outline clearly defined against the 
brightly-lighted background of the box. She was hold- 
ing a saucer in her hand, eating an ice. He saw her 
once more as she stood near the buffet at Madame 
Marsy’s, stirring her sherbet, a silver-gilt spoon smoothly 
gliding over her tongue. He closed his eyes, and with 
a nervous start quickly descended the grand stairway, 
where he found himself alone. 

In order to forget Marianne, he turned his thoughts to 
Ramel. 

Denis had been suffering for a long time. He smiled 
as he felt the hour of his departure draw near. He 
wished to disappear without stir, and in a civil way as he 
said, without attracting attention, a I'Anglaise. Poor 
man ! his wish was accomplished. 

Vaudrey threw himself into a carriage and was driven 
to Batignolles. On the way he thought of the eternal 
antitheses of Parisian life : the news of the death of a 
friend communicated to him at the Op6ra while a waltz- 
tune was being played ! 

And thinking to himself : 

“ From the Opera to the Opera ! That, moreover, is 
the history of my ministry — and that of the Granet 
administration, probably ! ” 

The portress at Rue Boursault led him to Denis 
Ramel’s apartment. Lying on his bed with a kindly 


PART SECOND 


5 2 7 

smile on his face, the old journalist seemed as if asleep. 
The cold majesty of death gave a look of power to his 
face. One might almost believe at times, from the 
scintillating light placed near his bony brow, that its 
rigid muscles moved. 

Denis Ramel ! the sure guide of his youth and his 
counsellor through life ! He recalled his entry on public 
life, his arrival in Paris, the first articles brought into the 
old editorial rooms of the Nation Fran<;aise / If for a 
moment he had been one of the heads of the State, it 
was due to the man stretched out before him now ! 

He gently stooped over the corpse and pressed a 
farewell kiss on the dead man’s brow. 

As he turned round, he saw a man whom he had not 
at first seen and who had risen. 

The man was very pale and greeted him with a timid 
air. 

Vaudrey recognized Gamier, the man whom he had 
seen previously at Ramel’s, a cough-racked, patient, 
dying man. 

The consumptive had nevertheless outlived the old 
man. 

“ It is good of you to have come, monsieur,” said the 
workman. “ He loved you dearly.” 

“ He died suddenly then? ” 

“Yes, and quite alone, while reading a book. He 
was found thus. They thought he was sleeping. It is 
all over, he is to be buried to-morrow. Will you come, 


528 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

monsieur? — I did not know who you were when — you 
know — I said — In fact, it is kind — let us say no more 
about it — I beg your pardon — There will be a vast 
gathering at Denis Ramel’s funeral, if there are present 
only a quarter of those whom he has obliged.” 

Vaudrey was heartbroken the next day. Behind 
Ramel’s coffin, not a person followed. Himself, Gar- 
nier, and one or two old women from the house on Rue 
Boursault, who did not go all the way to the cemetery of 
Saint-Ouen because it was too far, were all that were 
present. At the grave Sulpice Vaudrey stood alone with 
the grave-digger and the workman Gamier. They buried 
Ramel in a newly-opened part close to the foot of a 
railway embankment. 

For years Ramel had been forgotten, had even forgot- 
ten himself, he had let ambitious men pass beyond him, 
ingrates succeed and selfish men get to the top ! He 
no longer existed ! And those very men who had en- 
treated him and called him dear master in the old days, 
soliciting and flattering him, now no longer knew his 
name. Had he disappeared, or did he still live, that 
forerunner, a sort of Japanese idol, an ancient, a useless 
being who had known neither how to make his fortune 
nor his position, while building up that of others? No- 
body knew or cared. Occasionally when circumstances 
called for it, they laughed at this romantic figure in 
politics, living like a porter, poor, lost, and buried under 
a mass of unknown individuals, after having made min- 


PART SECOND 


529 

isters and unmade governments. Yet, at the news of 
his death, not one of those who were indebted to him for 
everything, not a single politician who was well in the 
saddle, and for whom he had held the stirrup, not a 
comedian of the Chambers or the theatre who had 
pleaded with him, urged and flattered him, was to be 
found there to pay the most ordinary respects of 
memory to the man who had disappeared. That fateful 
solitude, added to a keen winter’s wind, appeared to 
Sulpice to be a cruel abandonment and an act of cow- 
ardice. Two men followed the cortege of that maker of 
men ! 

“ Follow journalism and you make the fame of others,” 
said Vaudrey, shaking his head. 

“After all,” answered Gamier, “there are dupes in 
every trade, and they are necessarily the most honest.” 

When this man, who had been a minister, left the 
grave above which the whistling trains passed, a freezing 
rain was falling and he passed out of the cemetery in the 
company of the poor devil who coughed so sadly within 
the collar of his overcoat that was tightly drawn up over 
his comforter. 

Before leaving him, Vaudrey, with a feeling of timid- 
ity, desired to ask him if work was at least fairly good. 

“Thanks ! ” replied Gamier. “ I have found a situa- 
tion — And then — ” he shook his head as he pointed out 
behind the black trees and the white graves, the spot 
where they had lowered Ramel — “One has always a 
34 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


53 ° 

place when all is over, and that perhaps is the best of 
all ! ” 

He bowed and Vaudrey left in a gloomy mood. It 
seemed to him that his life was crumbling away, that he 
was sowing, shred by shred, his flesh on the road. The 
black hangings of Ramel’s coffin — and he smiled sadly 
at this new irony — recalled to him the bills of the 
upholsterers that he still owed for the furnishing of that 
fete at the ministry on the last day of his power and his 
happiness. The official decorations of Belloir and the 
Gobelins were not sufficient for him. He had desired 
more modern decorations. He gave the coachman the 
upholsterer’s address, Boulevard des Capucins. He 
hardly dared to enter and say : “ I have come to pay 
the account of the furnishing supplied at the ministry ! ” 
It still seemed like a funeral bill he was paying. This 
upholsterer’s account, paid for forgotten display, seemed 
to him a sort of mortuary transaction. 

When he paid the upholsterer, the latter seemed to 
wear a cunning smile. 

On finding himself again outside, he felt a sensation 
of relief ; being cold, he was inclined to walk with a 
view to warming his chill blood. 

On hearing his name spoken by some one, he turned 
round and perceived before him his compatriot J£liotte, 
the friend of his childhood, the comrade, who, with a 
smile, cordially extended his hands toward him. 

“ I told you that you would always find me when I 


PART SECOND 


53i 

should not appear before you as a courtier ! Well, then, 
here I am,” said J^liotte. “ Now you may see me as 
much as you please ! ” 

“ Ah ! ” said Vaudrey. 

J&iotte took his arm. 

“ Probably you are going to the Chamber? ” 

“Yes, exactly.” 

“ Well, I will accompany you ! — Ah, since you are no 
longer minister, my dear friend, and that one does not 
appear to be a flatterer or a seeker of patronage, one 
can speak to you — You have faults enough ! — You are 
too confident, too moderate — It is necessary to have a 
firm hand — And then that could not last. Those sit- 
uations are all very fine but they are too easily de- 
stroyed ! — They are like glass, my old friend ! — A place 
is wanted for everybody, is it not? — Bah ! must I tell 
you? — Why, you are happier! I like you better as 
it is!” 

Vaudrey felt strongly inclined to shake off this pre- 
tentious ninny who was clinging to his arm. 

“ That is like me ! ” continued J61iotte. “ I like my 
friends better when they are down ! What would you 
have? It is my generous nature. By the way, do you 
know that the reason I have not seen you before is 
because I have not been in Paris ! I have returned 
from Isere ! ” 

“ Ah ! ” said Vaudrey, thinking of Adrienne. 

“Well, you know, I have still some good news for 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


532 

you. If you have had enough of politics, you can retire 
at the approaching election ! ” 

“ How? ” asked Sulpice. 

“ Why, Thibaudier is stirring up Grenoble. He has 
got the whole city with him. He is very much liked 
and is a model mayor. He is a very mere — mother — that 
mayor ! — J£liotte laughed heartily, believing that he was 
funny. — If there is a list balloted for, and there certainly 
will be, Thibaudier will head the list. If they had main- 
tained the scrutin d’ arrondissement, he would have been 
capable of passing muster, all the same ! ” 

“Against me?” 

“ Against you. Thibaudier is very popular ! — And as 
firm as a rock ! — He thinks you moderate, too moderate, 
as everybody else does ! ” 

“He? — He was a member of the Plebiscite Com- 
mittee under the Empire ! ” 

“ Exactly ! He is an extreme Republican, just as he 
was an extreme Bonapartist. Oh ! Thibaudier is a man, 
there is no concession with him. Never ! He is always 
the same. He will beat you. Moreover, in Isere, they 
want a homogeneous representation — ” 

“Again ! ” said Vaudrey, who felt that he was pursued 
by this word. 

After all, what did Thibaudier matter to him, or the 
deputation, the election or politics? Denis Ramel had 
sounded its depths in his grave in the cemetery of Saint- 
Ouen. 


PART SECOND 


533 

“ Let us drop Thibaudier. By the way,” said J£liotte, 
“ I saw your wife at Grenoble.” 

Vaudrey grew pale. 

He again repeated : “Ah!” 

“ She is greatly changed. She doesn’t leave the house 
of her uncle, the doctor, nor does she receive any one. 

“ Is she sick, then? ” 

“ Yes, slightly.” 

“ And you are separated, then? ” 

“ No,” replied Sulpice. 

Jeliotte smiled. 

“ Ah ! joker, I understand ! — Your wife was too strict ! 
— Bless me, a provincial ! Bah ! that will come right ! 
And if it doesn’t, why, you will be free, that’s all ! But, 
say, then, if you are not re-elected, you will rejoin 
her at Grenoble. Oh ! your clients will return to you. 
You are highly esteemed as an advocate, but as a minis- 
ter, I ought to say — ” 

“ I shall be re-elected,” said Vaudrey, in a decisive 
tone, so as to cut short Jeliotte’s interminable phrases. 

He was exceedingly unnerved. This man’s stupidity 
would exasperate him. He would never come across 
any but subjects of irritation or disheartenment. He 
felt inclined to seek a quarrel with some one. He 
would have liked to wrench Marianne’s wrist with his 
fingers. 

As he entered the hall leading to the assembly, he un- 
wittingly stumbled against a gentleman who was walking 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


534 

rapidly and without saluting him, although he thought 
that he recognized him. 

“Yet I know him ! ” 

He had not gone three steps before he perfectly re- 
called this eternal lobbyist, always bending before him and 
clinging to the armchairs of the antechambers, like an 
oyster to a rock, and whom the messengers, accustomed 
to his soliciting, bowing and scraping for years past, 
called Monsieur Eugene — out of courtesy. 

It was too much ! And, in truth, this strange fellow’s 
impoliteness was ill-timed. 

Sulpice suddenly turned round, approached Renaudin, 
and said to him sharply : 

“You bowed more obsequiously to me a short time 
since, monsieur ! It seems to me that you were in the 
ministerial antechambers every morning ! ” 

He expected a haughty reply from Renaudin, and 
that this man would have compensated him for the others. 

Monsieur Eugene smiled as he answered : 

“Why, I am still there, monsieur ! ” 

Vaudrey looked at him with a stupefied air, then in an 
outburst of anger, as if he conveyed in the reply that he 
hurled at this contemptible fellow, all the projects of his 
future revenge upon the fools, the knaves, the dull valets 
and the ungrateful horde, he said, boldly : 

“ Well, you will salute me again, for I shall return there.” 

He turned on his heels away from this worthless fellow, 
and entered the Chamber. 


PART SECOND 


535 

He heard an outburst of bravos ; a perfect tempest of 
enthusiasm reached him. He looked on and bit his 
lips. 

Lucien Granet was in the tribune, and the majority 
were applauding him. 


IX 

Marianne Kayser had the good taste, and perhaps the 
good sense not to desire a solemnized marriage. It 
mattered little to her if she entered her duchy surrep- 
titiously, provided she was sovereign there. She would 
have time later to assume a lofty air under her ducal 
coronet; meanwhile, she would act with humility while 
wearing the wreath of orange blossoms. She had dis- 
charged Jean and Justine with considerable presents, 
thinking it undesirable to keep any longer about her 
people who knew Vaudrey. She had advised Justine to 
marry Jean. 

“ Marriage is amusing ! ” she had said. 

“Madame is very kind,” answered Justine, “but she 
sees, herself, that it is better to wait sometimes. There 
is no hurry, one does not know what may happen.” 

The future duchess showed that she was but little 
flattered by the girl’s reflections. It was scarcely worth 
while not to put on airs even with servants, to meet 
such fools who become over-familiar with you immedi- 


536 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 

ately. So, in future, she would strive to be not such a 
kind-hearted girl. She would keep servants at a dis- 
tance. They would see. Meanwhile, she was delighted 
to have made a clean sweep in the house, she could now 
lie to Rosas as much as she pleased. 

Besides, the duke, who was madly in love and whose 
desire was daily whetted by Marianne, would have been 
capable, as Lissac said, of accepting everything and for- 
getting all, so that he might clasp the woman in his 
arms. She held him entirely in her grasp, under the 
domination of her intoxicating seductiveness, skilfully 
granting by a kiss that kindled the blood in Jose’s veins 
the promise of more ardent caresses. In this very exer- 
cise, she assumed a passionate tenderness like a courte- 
san accustomed to easy defeat who resists her very 
disposition so that she may not be too soon vanquished. 
She had ungovernable impulses that carried her toward 
Rosas as to an unknown pleasure. 

The ivory-like pallor of this red-haired man with 
sunken eyes and trembling lips, almost cold when she 
sought them under his tawny moustache, pleased her. 
She sometimes said to him that under his gentle manner 
he had the appearance of a tiger. “ Or of a cat, and that 
pleases me, for I am myself of that nature. Ah ! how 
I love you ! ” She felt herself tremble with fear of that 
being whom she felt that she had conquered and who 
was entirely hers, but she was strangely troubled in 
divining some of his secret thoughts. 


PART SECOND 


537 

She was in a hurry to have the marriage concluded. 
Secretly if it were desired, but legally and positively. 
She dreaded Josh’s reawakening, as it were. She did 
not know how, perhaps an anonymous letter, a chance 
meeting with Guy, an explanation, who knows ? 

“Although, after all,” she thought, “I have been 
foolish to trouble myself about this Guy. Word threats, 
that’s all ! ” 

The duke had treated her as a virtuous girl, requiring 
her to declare that she had never loved any but him, or 
that, at least, no living person had the right to say that 
he had possessed her. She had sworn all that he 
desired, saying to Uncle Kayser : “ Oaths like that are 
like political promises, they bind one to nothing ! ” 

The uncle began to entertain an extravagant admira- 
tion for his “ little Marianne.” There is a woman, sure 
enough ! Wonderful elegance ! She had promised to 
have a studio built for him, in which he could, instead of 
painting, take his ease, stretched on a divan, smoking 
his pipe, and pass his days in floating to the ceiling his 
theories of high and moral art ! An ideal picture ! 

He also was in favor of prompt action in respect to 
the marriage. As little noise as possible. The least 
hitch and all was lost. What a pity 1 

“ Do you wish me to tell you? It seems to me that 
you are walking to the mayor’s office on eggs ! ” 

“ Be easy,” Marianne replied, laughing heartily, 
" there will be none broken.” 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


53 8 

The marriage was celebrated. At last ! as Kayser 
said. It was a formality rather than a ceremony. Ma- 
rianne, ravishingly beautiful, was exultant at realizing her 
dream. Her pale complexion took on tints of the 
bloom of the azalea pierced by the rays of the sun. 
Never had Rosas seen her so lovely. How stupidly he 
had acted formerly in yielding to appearances and fly- 
ing from her, instead of telling her that he loved her. 
He had lost whole years of love that he would never 
recover, even in the blissful fever of this union. Those 
joys, formerly disdained, were, alas ! never to be re- 
stored. 

“ Ah ! how he would love her now, adore her and 
keep her with him as his living delight ! They would 
travel ; in three days they would set out for Italy. The 
baggage already filled the house in the Avenue Mon- 
taigne, their nuptial mansion. Marianne would take away 
all the souvenirs that she had preserved in the grisette’s 
little room at Rue Cuvier, where Rosas had so often 
seen her and where he had said to her : “ I love you ! ” 

“ People took their penates,” she said, “ but I take 
my fetishes ! ” 

Rosas was wild with joy. The possession of this wo- 
man, sought after as mistress, but more intensely ardent 
than a mistress, with her outbursts of tears and kisses, 
threw him into ecstasies and possessed him with distract- 
ing joy. Something within him whispered, as in the 
days of early manhood, at the ecstatic hour of sunrise. 


PART SECOND 


539 

Already he wished to be on the way to Italy with Ma- 
rianne, far from the mire and mists of Paris. 

“ These rain-soaked sidewalks on which the gaslight 
is reflected seem gloomy to me,” he said. “Let us 
seek the blue skies, Marianne, the orange groves of Nice, 
the stars of Naples.” 

She smiled. 

“ The blue again ! ” she thought. “ They all desire it, 
then? ” 

She desired to remain a few days longer in Paris, de- 
lighted to proclaim her new name in its streets, its 
Bois and its theatres, where she had been known in 
her sadness, displaying her desperate melancholy. It 
seemed to her that, in her present triumph, she crushed 
both men and things. What was Naples to her? She 
had not miserably dragged her disillusions and her 
angers along the Chiaja. Florence might take her for a 
duchess, as well as any other, but Paris, every corner of 
which was familiar to her, and where every scene had 
been, as it were, a frame for her follies, her hopes, her 
failures, her heartbreaks, her deceptions, all her sorrows 
of an ambitious woman, which had made her the daring 
woman that she was, — those boulevards, those paths 
about the Lake, those proscenium boxes at the theatre, 
she would see them in her triumph, as she had seen 
them in her untrammelled follies or in the moments of 
her ruin and abandonment. 

“Two days more ! One day more,” she said. “After 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


540 

the first representation at the Variates, we will leave, are 
you willing? ” 

“Ah! you Parisienne ! Hungry Parisienne ! ” Jos£ 
replied. 

She looked at him with her gray eyes sparkling, and 
smiling. 

“The Vari£t£s? — Don’t you know the old rondel? — 
The one you hummed when you were sick, you know? — 
It seems to me that I can hear it yet : 

Do you see yonder 
That white house, 

Where every Sunday 
Under the sweet lilacs — 

Uncle Kayser, ever prudent, advised a speedy depar- 
ture. He feared he scarcely knew what. He feared 
everything, “like Abner and feared only that.” Every 
morning he dreaded seeing some indiscreet articles in 
the papers respecting the Duke and the Duchesse de 
Rosas. 

“These journalists disregard, without scruple, the wall 
of private life ! It is a moral wall, however ! ” 

At last, they would leave in two days, so it was de- 
termined. Rosas had wished to see Guy again for the 
last time. At Rue d’Aumale they informed him that 
Monsieur de Lissac was travelling. The shutters of the 
apartment were not, however, closed. The duke had 
for a moment been tempted to insist on entering ; then 
he withdrew and returned home without analyzing too 


PART SECOND 


S4i 

closely the feeling of annoyance that came over him. 
The weather was splendid and dry. He returned on 
foot to Avenue Montaigne, where he expected to find 
Marianne superintending her trunks. 

On entering the house, the doors of which were open, 
as at the hour of packing and removing, giving the whole 
house the appearance of neglect and flight, he was 
astonished to hear a man’s voice, which was neither that 
of Simon Kayser nor that of the valet, and evidently an- 
swering in a violent tone the equally evident angry voice 
of Marianne. 

He did not know this voice, and the noise of a bell- 
rope hastily pulled, in a fit of manifest anger, made him 
quicken his steps, as if he instinctively felt that the 
duchess was in danger. 

In the shadow of a dull December evening, the house, 
with its disordered appearance that resembled a sacking, 
assumed a sinister aspect. Jos£ suddenly felt a senti- 
ment of anguish. 

He quickly reached the salon, where Marianne was in 
a robe de chambre of black satin, and was standing near 
the chimney with an expression of anger in her eyes, 
holding the bell-rope, whose iron chain had struck 
against the wall. 

Before her stood a young man with a heavy moustache, 
his hat tilted over his ear, whom Monsieur de Rosas did 
not know. 

His manner was insolent and he looked thick-set in 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


542 

his black, close-buttoned frock-coat. His style was vul- 
gar, and, with his hands in his pockets, he appeared 
both low and threatening. 

Marianne rang for a servant. She was flushed with 
rage. She became livid on seeing Jos£. 

“ What is the matter, then? ” asked Rosas coldly, as he 
stepped between the duchess and the man. 

The man looked at him, took off his hat, and in a 
loud voice that was itself odoriferous, said : 

“You are Monsieur le Due de Rosas, doubtless?” 

“Yes,” said Jos£, “and may I know? ” 

“ Nothing ! it is nothing ! ” cried Marianne, running 
hastily to Jos£ and taking his hands as if she desired to 
drag him away. 

“How, nothing?” the man then said, as he took a 
seat, holding his hat in his hand and placing his fist on 
his left hip, in the attitude of a fencing-master posing for 
an elegant effect. “ To treat a gentleman as you have 
just treated me ; you call that nothing? ” 

He turned to Rosas and said, as he saluted him with 
the airs of a sub . off. on the stage : 

“ Adolphe Gochard ! You do not know me, Monsieur 
le due? ” 

“ No,” said Jos£. 

“What do you want? — ” 

“Ah! pardon me,” said Gochard, as he interrupted 
Marianne. “You rang. you wished to have the presence 
of the servants. You threatened to have me pitched out 


PART SECOND 


543 

of the door by the shoulders. Since you have called, 
they shall hear me.” 

The servants, hurrying to the spot, now appeared in 
the indistinct shadow of the doorway. 

“ Be off ! ” cried Marianne. 

“Why? ” asked the duke severely, and astonished. 

“ Because madame prefers that I should only tell you 
what I have to say to you,” said Gochard. “Ah ! you 
claimed that I wanted to extort blackmail. I, an old 
brigadier, extort blackmail? Well, so let it be ! Let us 
sing our little song ! ” 

“Monsieur,” said the duke, who had become pallid 
and whose clenched teeth showed beneath his red beard, 
“ I do not know what Madame la Duchesse de Rosas has 
said to you, or what you have dared to say to her, but 
you will leave this place instanter ! ” 

“ Is that so? ” said the man, as he shrugged his shoul- 
ders, which were like those of a suburban bully. 

“ Just so ! ” 

“That would surprise me!” said Gochard. But, 
saperlipopette , you are not very polite in your set ! ” 

“ Not very polite with boors ! You are in my 
house ! ” 

“Oh! you can’t teach me where I am!” said the 
Dujarrier’s lover, with a wink of his eye. “ But, ma- 
dame has been perching at my cost for a long time at 
Rue Prony and it is upon my signature, yes, my own sig- 
nature, if you please, that she has obtained the means of 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


544 

renting the Hotel Vanda. She has not so much to be 
impudent about ! ” 

“Your signature? — The Hotel Vanda? ” 

The duke looked at Marianne, who, as white as a 
corpse, instead of becoming indignant, entreated and 
tried to lead her husband away from this man, as if they 
were in the presence of grave danger. 

“Ah! bless me!” cried Jos£, “you will explain to 
me — ! ” 

“ That is very easy ! — I was in want of money — The 
Dujarrier furnished me with a little for that affair. She 
is too niggardly. I asked madame for it. She assumes a 
haughty tone, and instead of comprehending that I come 
as a friend, she threatens to have me put out of doors. 
Blackmail ! I? — I? — What nonsense ! ” 

A friend ! This man dared to say before her who 
bore the name of Duchesse de Rosas, that he came to 
her as an intimate. This alcoholic braggart had assisted 
Marianne in sub-letting, he knew not what hotel, from a 
wanton ! — Rue Prony ! — Vanda — What was there in com- 
mon between these names and that of the duchess? 
And the Dujarrier, that Dujarrier whose manner of living 
was known to the Castilian, how had she become asso- 
ciated with Marianne’s life ? 

Ah ! since he had commenced, this Gochard would 
make an end of it. He would tell everything ! Even if 
he did not wish it, he would speak now. Rosas, also 
frightened himself, and terrified at the prospect of some 




- 


























































PART SECOND 


545 

unknown baseness and suspected transaction, felt Mari- 
anne’s hand tremble in his, and by degrees, as Gochard 
proceeded, the duke realized that Marianne wished to 
get away and it was he who now retained her ; holding 
the young woman’s wrist tightly within his fingers, he 
forcibly prevented her from escaping, insisting that she 
should listen and hear everything. 

“ Ah ! if you think that I am afraid of speaking,” said 
Gochard, “ you will soon see ! ” 

And then with a sort of swaggering air like that of a 
fencing-master or tippler, searching for some droll ex- 
pressions, cowardly avenging himself by jests ejected like 
so many streams of tobacco, against this woman who had 
just insulted him, who spoke of blackmail and the police, 
and of thrusting the miserable fellow out of doors, he 
told everything that he knew ; Marianne’s neediness, her 
weariness, her loves, the Dujarrier connection, the rent- 
ing of the Hotel Vanda, the Vaudrey paper and its re- 
newals, his own foolishness as a too artless and tender, 
good sort of fellow, relying on Claire Dujarrier’s word, 
and not reserving to himself so much per cent in the 
affair ! 

Rosas listened open-mouthed, his ears tingling and his 
blood rushing to his temples, while he sunk his fingers 
into Marianne’s arms, she, meanwhile, glaring at Gochard. 

When he had finished, she disengaged herself from 
Rosas’s clutch by an extreme effort, and ran to the rascal 
and spat in his face. 

35 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


546 

He lifted his hand to her and said : 

“ Ah ! but ! — ” 

“ Begone !” said the duke. “You wish to be paid? ” 

“ The money is not all. I demand respect ! ” replied 
Gochard, as he wiped his cheek. 

He placed his card on the mantelpiece. 

“ Adolphe Gochard ! there is my address. Besides, 
Madame knows it. With the pistol, the sabre, or the 
espadon, as you please ! I am afraid of no one.” 

“ You will be paid, you have been told, you shall be 
paid ! ” cried Marianne, absolutely crazy and ready to 
tear him with her nails. “ Be off ! ruffian ! begone, 
thief ! ” 

“ Fiddle-faddle ! ” replied Adolphe, as he replaced 
his hat on the side of his bald head. “ I have said 
what I have to say. I do not like to be made a fool 
of!” 

He disappeared as he waddled away like a strolling 
player uncertain of his exit. 

Rosas did not even see him go. 

He had seized Marianne by both hands and was dragging 
her toward the window, through which the daylight still 
entered, and convulsed with rage he penetrated her eyes 
with his glance, his face looking still more pallid, in con- 
trast with his red beard. 

She was terrified. She believed herself at the point 
of death. She felt that he was going to kill her. 

She suddenly fell on her knees. 


PART SECOND 


547 

He still looked at her, leaning over her with the ap- 
pearance of a madman. 

“Vaudrey? — Vaudrey? The man whom I saw at 
your uncle’s? — The man whom I have elbowed with 
you? — Vaudrey? — This man was your lover, then?” 

She was so alarmed that she did not reply. 

“ You have lied to me, then? But, tell me, wretched 
woman, have you not lied to me?” 

“ I loved you and I desired you ! ” said Marianne. 

“ Nonsense ! ” said Rosas, in a strident, deep-chested 
voice. “ You wanted what that rascal wanted : money ! 
You should have asked me for it ! I would have given 
you everything, all my fortune, all ! But not my name ! 
Not my name ! ” 

He roughly repelled her. 

She remained on her knees. Her hands hung down 
and rested on the carpet. She looked at it stupefied, 
hardly distinguishing its rose pattern. 

She was certain that she was about to die. Josh’s 
sudden anger had the fitfulness of a wild beast’s. He 
crushed her with a terrible glance from his bloodshot eyes. 

Then he began to laugh hysterically, like a young 
girl. 

“ Idiot ! Idiot ! Idiot ! — In a wanton’s house yonder 
in Rue Prony, at Vanda’s ! Vanda’s ! At Vanda’s, in a 
harlot’s bed, she gave herself, sold herself ! — A Rosas, 
for she is a Rosas ! A Duchesse de Rosas now ! Idiot ! 
Idiot that lam!” 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


548 

Marianne would have spoken, entreated, but fear 
froze her, coming over her flesh and through her veins. 
She realized that an implacable resolution possessed this 
trusting man. She found a master this time. 

“ Jos£ ! ” said Marianne softly, in a timid voice. 

He drew himself up as if the mention of this name 
were an insult. 

“ Come ! ” he said calmly, “ so let it be. What is 
done, is done. So much the worse for the fools ! But 
listen carefully.” 

This little, pale, blond man seemed, in the growing 
darkness, like a portrait of former days stepped forth 
from its frame. 

His hand of steel again seized Marianne’s wrists. 

“You are called the Duchesse de Rosas? — You were 
ambitious for that name, you eagerly desired and strug- 
gled hard for that title, did you not? Well, I will not, 
at least, suffer you to drag it like so many others into 
intruders’ salons, under ironical glances, before mocking 
smiles and lorgnettes, in view of the papers, and into 
the gossip of the Paris whose gutter-odor tempts you so. 
strongly that you have not yet been able to leave it 
Parbleu / you have another lover in it, I wager ! — Vau- 
drey ! — Or Lissac and many others ! — Is it as I say? ” 

“ I swear to you — ” 

“ Ah ! you have lied to me, do not swear ! We are 
about to leave. Not for Italy. It is good for those who 
love each other. You do not know Fuentecarral? — 


PART SECOND 


549 

You are about to make its acquaintance. It is your 
chateau now. Yours, yours, since you are a Rosas ! ” 

He again broke into laughter, such as a judge might 
indulge in who should mock at a condemned man. 

“We are about to leave for Toledo. You asked me, 
one day, about the castle in which I was born. It is a 
prison, simply a prison. It is habitable nevertheless. 
But when one enters it, one rarely leaves it. The device 
that you will bear is not very cheerful, but it is eloquent, 
you know it : Hasta la maerte ! — “ Until death ! ” — 
What do you say about it? — We shall beat Toledo in 
three days. There are Duchesses de Rosas who will 
look on you, as you pass, over their plaited collars, and 
as there were neither adulteresses nor courtesans among 
them, they will probably ask what the Parisian is doing 
among them. Well, I will answer them myself, that she 
is there to live out her life, you understand, there, face to 
face with me, as you have desired ’ as you said, and no 
one will have the right to sneer before the Due de Rosas, 
who will see no one. Oh ! yes, I know that I belong to 
another period ! I am ridiculous, romantic ! — I am 
just that ! — You have awakened the half- Arab that lurks in 
the Castilian. So much the worse for you if you have 
made me remember that I am a Rosas ! ” 

She remained there, thunderstruck, hearing the duke 
come and go, his heels ringing in spite of the muffling 
of the carpet, like the heels of an armed man. 

At times, when he passed quite close to her, his at- 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


55 ° 

tenuated shadow was cast at full length over her and she 
was filled with fear. 

She experienced a feeling of fear as if she were before 
an open tomb or that a puff of damp air chilled her face, 
or that she was suddenly enveloped by the odor of a 
cellar. She shuddered and wished to plead with him, 
murmuring : 

“ Pity ! — Pardon ! — ” 

“ Madame la duchesse,” Rosas replied coldly, “ I am 
one of those who may be deceived, no one is beyond the 
reach of treason ; but I am not one of those who pardon. 
I have been extremely foolish, ridiculous, credulous ! So 
much the worse for me ! So much the worse for you ! 
Rosas you are, Rosas you will be ! T have been your 
victim, eh? Exactly, that is admitted: you shall be mine ! 
Nothing could be juster, I think ! I wish no scandal 
resulting from a lawsuit or the notoriety of one or more 
duels. I should become ridiculous in the eyes of others. 
But in my own and your eyes, I do not propose to be ! 
I did not desire to be your lover, I have hardly been your 
husband. Now I am your companion forever. Hasta 
la nmerte / For me, the cold of an Escurial has no 
terror. I am accustomed to it. If it makes you quake, 
whose fault is it? You willed it. A double suicide ! 
We leave this evening ! ” 

“This evening ! ” repeated Rosas, terribly, while Ma- 
rianne, terrified, felt stifled under the crushing weight of 
that name : Duchesse de, Rosas / 


PART SECOND 


55i 

Simon Kayser came to dine. He was deeply moved 
when he learned that the housekeeping was upset. 

What ! the devilish duke knew all then ? 

And he has taken the matter up in a dramatic 
fashion ? 

“ Folly ! ” 

“ It is a serious matter, all the same,” said the uncle, 
after debating with himself as to where he should dine ! 

. — He will break her heart as he said, immured yonder 
within his four walls ! — Ah ! it was hardly worth while to 
handle her affairs so cleverly for a Gochard to come on 
the scenes and spoil everything, the rascal ! For my- 
self, I pity the little Marianne ! — Her plan of battle was 
excellently arranged, well disposed and admirably put 
together ! It was superb ! And it failed ! — Come, it 
amounts to this in everything : it is said that the pursuit 
of a great art is to ply the trade of a dupe ! Destiny 
lacks morality ! We should perhaps be happier, both, if 
she were simply a cocotte and I engaged in photography ! 
— But ! ” the brave fellow added : “one has lofty ideas, 
as-pi-ra-tions, or one has not ! — One cannot remake one’s 
self when one is an artist ! ” 


Paris, 1880-1881. 






LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER 


PAGE 

DE LISSAC ARRESTED AT THE MIRLITONS .... Fronts. 

IN THE GREENROOM OF THE OPERA 1 6 

HIS EXCELLENCY ENTERS MADAME MARSY’S BOX 40 

VAUDREY MEETS MARIANNE IN THE BOIS 2l6 

SULPICE BECOMES SURETY FOR MARIANNE 272 

AN UNLOOKED-FOR MEETING 328 

THE BANQUET . 376 

MADAME VAUDREY DISCOVERS HER HUSBAND’S INTRIGUE . . 44O 

THE RECEPTION AT THE HOTEL BEAUVAU 456 

MARIANNE HEARS HER SENTENCE OF BANISHMENT .... 544 


553 






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